KABUL, Afghanistan _ President Donald Trump spoke by phone with a top leader of the Taliban about the recent peace agreement reached in Qatar.
Trump, speaking Tuesday as he left the White House, called the conversation a "very good talk" and said they agreed to fulfilling the agreement to reduce violence in Afghanistan.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said earlier that Trump had spoken with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who signed the peace accord with the U.S. in Qatar on Saturday.
The accord marked a concrete step toward ending a 19-year U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan following the American invasion in late 2001.
The call is believed to be the first one between a U.S. president and top Taliban official since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. At the time, the Taliban ruled the country and refused to surrender al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who eventually fled to neighboring Pakistan before being killed by U.S. forces in 2011.
Trump has shown a penchant for being open to talking or meeting with foreign leaders at odds with the U.S. He broke decades of precedent when he met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore in 2018 in an effort to jump start talks over Pyongyang's nuclear program. He's also lavished praise on Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
The president, speaking Saturday in a news conference at the White House, said he plans to meet personally with Taliban leaders "in the not-too-distant future."
"I really believe the Taliban wants to do something to show that we're not all wasting time," Trump said. "If bad things happen, we'll go back."
The peace deal signed on Saturday helps Trump fulfill a 2016 campaign promise to begin pulling American forces out of what he's called "endless wars." The agreement calls for U.S. troop levels to fall to 8,600 within 135 days, from about 13,000 now, and for all U.S. forces to withdraw in 14 months if the accord holds.
