U.S. President Donald Trump has spent Thanksgiving at a military base in Afghanistan.
The president, who is facing voters in a bid to be re-elected next year, was on his first trip to the two-decades long war-ravaged nation since assuming office.
“There is nowhere I’d rather celebrate this Thanksgiving than right here,” Mr Trump said
His visit, which lasted from 8:30 pm local time Thursday night until midnight, followed a similar lightning trip to Iraq for Thanksgiving last year.
The United States is heavily engaged in dialogue with the Taliban in attempting to thrash out an agreement which will end the war which began in 2001 following the 11 September terrorist attacks in the U.S.
A recent prisoner swap between the two was the first time talks had resumed since the U.S. president broke off talks ahead of a planned visit by top officials of the Taliban to Camp David earlier this year.
“The Taliban wants to make a deal,” President Trump told troops assembled at Bagram airbase on Thursday.
“We’re meeting with them and we say it has to be a ceasefire and they didn’t want to do a ceasefire and now they want to do a ceasefire,” he said. “I believe it will probably work out that way.”
While in Afghanistan President Trump also met with Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani.
There are 13,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, significantly more than invaded the country in 2001.
Mr Trump said he was going to reduce that number to 8,600, slightly less than the 9,000 that first occupied the country in 2001.
“We’re going to stay until such time as we have a deal or we have total victory, and they want to make a deal very badly,” he said.
