Presidency of Donald Trump

More women and children were killed and wounded in Afghanistan in the first half of 2021 than in the first six months of any year since the United Nations began systematically keeping count in 2009, a U.N. report said on July 26.

Afghan authorities on July 23 imposed a night-time curfew across 31 of the country's 34 provinces to curb surging violence unleashed by a sweeping Taliban offensive in recent months, the interior ministry said.

With the last U.S. forces on the way out of Afghanistan, U.S. President Joe Biden assured President Ashraf Ghani of U.S. diplomatic and humanitarian support on July 23 as Taliban advances piled pressure on the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.

The Taliban is seeking support from Muslim countries to find a political solution to the conflict in Afghanistan and wants to develop good ties with Turkey, the group's spokesman Zabinullah Muhajid has said.

"Turkey is our brother, and we have so much in common based on faith," Mujahid said in an interview with TRT Arabi.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said the Taliban should end the occupation of their brothers' soil and played down a warning from the militant group of consequences if Turkish troops remain in Afghanistan to run Kabul airport.

The latest round of intra-Afghan negotiations failed to deliver a breakthrough, with the Afghan government and the Taliban vowing in a joint statement on July 19 to meet again and expedite high-level peace talks in Doha, Qatar.

The Turkish foreign minister said on July 15 that he discussed Afghan peace with U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan reconstruction.

Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu met Zalmay Khalilzad during his visit to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.

Çavuşoğlu tweeted that he "exchanged views on the Afghan peace process and regional developments."

U.S. troops were sent to Afghanistan by George W. Bush in 2001, with the aim of destroying the training camps for al-Qaeda terrorists after the terrorist attacks on September 11.
Since leaving the White House in 2009 after two terms, Bush has rarely commented on the moves of three later presidents, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and now Joe Biden, the Voice of America reported.

The highly transmissible Delta variant of COVID-19 is spreading fast in Turkey, the country's Health Minister has warned, adding that overall cases are also on the rise.

The Taliban claimed on July 9 to be in control of 85 percent of Afghanistan after seizing key border crossings with Iran and Turkmenistan, part of a sweeping offensive launched as US troops pull out of the war-torn nation.