KABUL: The Taliban government in Afghanistan has made it clear that it will never give Bagram Airbase to the United States.
American media outlets have reported Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid saying that a request from US President Donald Trump to give Bagram back to the US was dismissed.
Spokesman Mujahid dismissed Trump’s request as unreasonable and did not assert that Afghanistan will sacrifice its sovereignty. In addition, Mujahid also said President Trump’s request to use Bagram is unreasonable and insulting, and that the US should take an approach based on reasonableness and practicality.
Zabihullah, Mujahid recalled that not an inch of Afghanistan will be given to a foreign government. Mujahid repeated a comment from the Taliban Ministry of Defense that the US government had agreed in the Doha Agreement dated February 2020 to respect Afghanistan’s sovereignty and not to interfere in Afghanistan’s internal matters.
Mujahid specified that there is an ongoing conversation to allow embassies to reopen in Afghanistan, which were left unopened by the US government, but neither confirmed nor denied that the US government had made a written request to reopen embassies. During the withdrawal from Afghanistan, foreign nationals announced that Bagram Airbase had been handed back to Afghan authorities after 20 years of control.
Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump has issued a warning to Afghanistan for the return of Bagram Air Base, stating it should be returned to “those who built it”.
While issuing a statement on a social media update platform Truth Social, President Trump highlighted the strategic significance of Bagram and issued a warning that unless it is returned, “things could get very bad.”
According to international media reports, the Bagram Air Base, which was the hub of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, was taken over by the Taliban after the U.S. withdrawal in 2021.
Earlier this month, Trump hinted that there were talks with Afghan authorities concerning Bagram. But the Taliban and segments of the Kabul administration have flatly ruled out the possibility, both saying that there would never be a foreign military presence in the nation.
“Kabul is ready to negotiate,” said one official in the Afghan government, “but in no way are we going to accept the redeployment of U.S. military forces to Afghanistan.”
Experts caution that recapture of Bagram would consume enormous military and economic resources and could be engaged by the U.S. in still another protracted regional commitment.
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Trump has repeatedly criticized the 2021 withdrawal as one of the largest military blunders in U.S. history and had argued that Bagram should never have been abandoned.
