Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan on Sunday as the Biden administration faces a decision whether to withdraw troops by May 1 as required in a U.S. agreement with the Taliban.
Austin, the first member of President Joe Biden's Cabinet to travel to the country, met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Army Gen. Scott Miller, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, according to the press pool traveling with Austin.
"I came to Afghanistan to listen and learn," Austin said in a tweet accompanied by a photo of him meeting Ghani. The visit was "very helpful" and will help inform the administration's decisions about Afghanistan, he said.
Austin flew to Kabul from New Delhi as part of a trip that included visits to Japan and South Korea.
Before he arrived in Afghanistan, he told reporters in India that Biden "has not made a decision or made any announcements on when he'll decide to remove" U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
"In terms of an end date, setting a specific end date for withdrawal, that's the domain of my boss. That's the decision that the president will make at some point in time in terms of how he wants to approach this going forward," Austin said. He said later, "What we want to see is a responsible end to this conflict."
The Trump administration signed an agreement with the Taliban last year that called for all U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan by May 1 and for the insurgents to enter into peace talks with their adversaries in the Afghan government and commit to prevent Al Qaeda or other extremists from launching terrorist attacks from Afghanistan.
NBC News previously reported that Biden is considering keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan until November, rather than withdrawing them by the May 1 deadline.
The military has presented several options to the White House, including pulling troops out by or close to May 1, keeping troops in the country indefinitely or keeping troops in Afghanistan for a defined period to be determined by Biden, which could include a six-month extension, NBC News has reported.
Biden said in an interview with ABC News last week that a troop withdrawal "could happen, but it is tough." He said that if the troop exit date was delayed, it would not be by "a lot longer."
"I'm in the process of making that decision now as to when they'll leave," Biden said.
About 2,500 U.S. troops are still in Afghanistan. U.S. troops have been in Afghanistan since a U.S.-led force toppled the Taliban regime in 2001 for sheltering Al Qaeda militants who staged the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
