Trump administration officials have reportedly opened early-stage discussions with the Taliban about allowing a small U.S. military presence at Afghanistan's Bagram Airfield to serve as a launch point for counterterrorism operations.
The channel, led by hostage-response envoy Adam Boehler, is part of broader efforts that also touch on a potential prisoner exchange and economic ties; no agreement has been reached, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the talks.
The outreach follows President Donald Trump's remarks in Britain on Thursday that the U.S. is "trying to get [Bagram] back," underscoring the base's strategic value near China.
Taliban officials have turned down Trump's proposal for the United States to regain control of Bagram Air Base near Kabul after the Biden administration abandoned it during the 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
In a Thursday post on X, Zakir Jalaly, an official at the Taliban's Foreign Ministry, said that Afghanistan is willing to discuss the base with the Trump administration, but the U.S. will not be permitted to re-establish a military presence in the country.
"Afghanistan and the United States need to interact with each other and can have economic and political relations based on mutual respect and shared interests," Jalaly wrote, but the "Afghans have not accepted a military presence in history."
Muhajir Farahi, the deputy minister of information and culture in Afghanistan, shared part of a poem on X, which said that those who "once smashed their heads against the rocks with us, their minds have still not found peace."
During an early Thursday joint press conference in the United Kingdom with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Trump said the U.S. "gave" the Soviet-built base to the Taliban "for nothing."
"We're trying to get it back, by the way," the president said. "That could be a little breaking news, we're trying to get it back because they need things from us."
"We want that base back but one of the reasons we want the base is, as you know, it's an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons," he added.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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