Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Cmte. on Thursday issued a subpoena to President Trump's diplomat negotiating with the Taliban, demanding the envoy testify before lawmakers about his talks with the insurgents.
. He also canceled a meeting he said he had planned with Taliban representatives and the Afghan government at the Camp David presidential retreat.Engel said he issued the subpoena because he said the State Department failed to respond to numerous requests for briefings by the presidential envoy.
"More than 2,000 American troops have died in Afghanistan, and I'm fed up with this Administration keeping Congress and the American people in the dark on the peace process and how we're going to bring this long war to a close," Engel said in a statement.Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images file
"For months, we haven't been able to get answers on the Afghanistan peace plan, and now the President is saying the plan is dead," Engel added."We need to hear directly from the Administration's point person on Afghanistan to understand how this process went off the rails." Engel said the State Department declined requests from his committee in February, April and earlier this month.
Before Trump called off the talks, the proposed deal between the United States and the Taliban outlined a timetable for the phased withdrawal of U.S. troops in return for the militants agreeing to hold peace talks with the Afghan government and promising to prevent the country from being used as a staging ground for terrorist attacks, according to current and former U.S. officials and foreign diplomats.
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