The Trump administration’s envoy to Afghanistan on Monday said the first 5,000 US troops would pull out of Afghanistan within five months under a deal reached “in principle” with the Taliban – bringing an end to America’s longest war.

Zalmay Khalilzad shared the draft agreement with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul during meetings Sunday and Monday after proclaiming the two sides were on a “threshold” of a deal.

“We have reached an agreement with the Taliban in principle but of course until the US president agrees with it, it isn’t final,” Khalilzad told the TOLO news channel in Afghanistan.

Khalilzad, who traveled to Kabul after completing the ninth round of talks in Qatar with Taliban officials, said the agreements calls for withdrawing the 5,000 troops from five bases in Afghanistan within 135 days.

President Trump, who has long talked about ending the 18-year war in Afghanistan, said last week that he plans to reduce the number of troops in the war-torn country from 14,000 to 8,600.

Further draw-downs could come, depending on whether a peace deal is reached with the Taliban.

“We’re going down to 8,600 and then we’ll make a determination from there,” Trump told Fox News Radio.

He did not offer a timetable for the withdrawal.

Under the agreement, the Taliban would have to guarantee that it will not allow extremist groups to set up bases in Afghanistan where they could launch terror attacks as Osama bin Laden did on 9/11.

The spokesman for Ghani, Sediq Sediqqi, said the Afghan president has viewed the agreement.

“We will consult and comprehensively study this [document] and will try to formulate our observation based on our national interests,” Sediqqi said. “The efforts of the US and our allies will lead to a result when the Taliban enter into direct negotiations with the Afghan government and when we witness a ceasefire and end of violence.”

The Afghan government has not been included in the talks because the Taliban considers it a US puppet, but the deal spells out that “intra-Afghan” talks will take place to reach a political settlement and end the fighting between the insurgent group and the US-backed government.

Khalilzad, who has been meeting with Afghan leadership to build consensus for a deal, tweeted late Sunday that a deal was near.

”We are at the threshold of an agreement that will reduce violence and open the door for Afghans to sit together to negotiate an honorable and sustainable peace and a unified, sovereign Afghanistan that does not threaten the United States, its allies, or any other country,” he posted.

The talks to end the fighting has continued even as Taliban forces carried out attacks in two Afghan cities over the weekend, killing civilians and security forces.

On Monday, a suicide bomber detonated at a police checkpoint in Kunduz, killing 17 police officers.

With Post wires

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