President Trump said Thursday that the US plans to cut the number of American troops in Afghanistan from 14,000 to 8,600 and will then determine further draw-downs as a peace deal with the Taliban comes together.

But Trump also sounded a note of uncertainty about how or when the 18-year-old war would end.

“Who knows if it’s going to happen,” Trump told Fox News Radio.

Trump’s comment came as a US envoy continued talks with the Taliban to find a resolution to the war. The president said the US was “getting close” to making a deal, but that the outcome was uncertain.

The president did not offer a timeline for withdrawing troops. The Pentagon has been developing plans to withdraw as many as half of the 14,000 US troops still there, but the Taliban want all US and NATO forces gone.

“We’re going down to 8,600 and then we’ll make a determination from there,” Trump said, adding that the US was going to have a “high intelligence” presence in Afghanistan going forward.

If terror groups ever attacked America from Afghanistan again, “we will come back with a force like they’ve never seen before,” Trump warned before adding: “I don’t see that happening.”

The talk of a draw-down came on the heels of two of Trump’s top military officials Wednesday saying it was too early to talk about a full American troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Mike Esper told Pentagon reporters that any US deal with the Taliban would be based on security conditions on the ground and that Afghan forces weren’t yet able to secure the country without help from allied forces.

“I’m not using the withdraw word right now,” Dunford said. “It’s our judgment that the Afghans need support to deal with the level of violence” in the country.

With AP