An American analyst claims that China will prevent the US from retaking the Bagram base.
Bill Rajiv, a senior researcher and editor of the Long War Journal affiliated with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, claimed in an interview with Fox News that the Taliban will never accept the return of the United States and that even if the United States were to convince the Taliban, China would react strongly.
Rajiv stated that China and Russia have strategic interests in preventing the return of the United States to Afghanistan and claimed that the US withdrawal opened the way for Beijing’s economic and political influence through the “Belt and Road Initiative”, and China now has a key position with the Taliban through mining and trade contracts.
According to this American analyst, Beijing can prevent the Taliban from any possible agreement with the United States by revoking mineral concessions, restricting trade, and severing diplomatic relations, and this pressure will be vital for the Taliban, who are seeking legitimacy and economic prosperity.
Trump claims that the Doha agreement in 2020 was not supposed to include the handover of the Bagram base and that he intended to preserve it. However, the text of the agreement did not contain such a clause.
Trump also claimed that Bagram is just an hour away from where China is building nuclear weapons.
Rajiv claimed that the growing Taliban-China relationship not only provides the Taliban with billions of dollars in mineral revenues but could also lead to the transfer of technology and military resources.
He also stressed that al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups are currently using Afghanistan as their base of operations and that the security situation in the country has worsened even since the day before the September 11, 2001, attacks.
According to IRNA, the Afghan Taliban had previously reacted to US President Donald Trump’s claim that they were trying to regain control of the Bagram military base and had strongly denied the possibility of such an issue.
Zakir Jalali, a senior official in the Foreign Ministry of the Taliban caretaker government, wrote on the social network X: Afghanistan and the United States should engage with each other and establish political and economic relations based on common interests and mutual respect.
Jalali added: “The Afghans have historically not accepted a military presence, and the possibility of this issue was completely rejected during the Doha talks and the agreement reached, but the door is open for further engagement.”
Trump had previously said that the United States was seeking to regain control of Bagram Air Base from the Taliban and reclaim this strategic and important asset that was lost during the controversial withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The US president stated that he was negotiating with the Taliban so that American forces could once again occupy the base, which was previously the largest US military base in the country and was considered an important regional base due to its proximity to China.
Trump criticized former US President Joe Biden for the country’s controversial withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, claiming that the withdrawal had provided the Taliban with weapons and other US military assets, including bases.
The US president said in February at his first cabinet meeting after his re-election that in the previous withdrawal plan from Afghanistan, “we were going to keep Bagram, not for the sake of Afghanistan, but for the sake of China, because it is exactly one hour away from where China builds its nuclear missiles.”