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White House: Biden to Meet With Afghan President in Washington on June 25

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US President Joe Biden will receive his Afghan counterpart, Ashraf Ghani, and the chief of the Afghan reconciliation process, Abdullah Abdullah, on June 25, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Sunday.
Sputnik

"President Biden looks forward to welcoming Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, Chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation, to the White House on June 25, 2021. The visit by President Ghani and Dr. Abdullah will highlight the enduring partnership between the United States and Afghanistan as the military drawdown continues," the statement read.

The US continues to provide diplomatic, economic, and humanitarian assistance to support the Afghan people and facilitate the ongoing peace process between the Afghan government and the Taliban Islamist movement, encouraging all parties to participate in negotiations to put an end to the conflict, according to US government statements.

Afghanistan is still witnessing hostilities between government forces and the Taliban, whose militia groups control large rural territories. In February 2020, the United States and the Taliban signed their first peace agreement in eighteen years, which envisioned the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan and the launch of an intra-Afghan dialogue, begun in September 2020 in Doha.

In April, Biden announced that the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan would start in May, promising to complete it by the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

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