President Trump didn’t ask President Vladimir V. Putin whether or not Russian operatives in Afghanistan had paid Taliban-affiliated militants bounties to kill American troopers, Mr. Trump mentioned in a brand new interview, dismissing a state of affairs backed by U.S. intelligence as “faux information.”
Mr. Trump made the feedback in an interview on Tuesday with Axios scheduled to air on HBO subsequent week. Parts of it have been launched early Wednesday.
Mr. Trump spoke by phone final week with Mr. Putin, however throughout a public look on Monday declined to say whether or not he had raised the bounty challenge.
“We don’t speak about what we mentioned, however we had loads of dialogue,” he advised reporters.
However Mr. Trump was extra direct when pressed by the Axios reporter Jonathan Swan. “That was a telephone name to debate different issues, and albeit that’s a difficulty that many individuals mentioned was faux information,” he mentioned.
“If it reached my desk, I’d have carried out one thing about it,” Mr. Trump added, with out elaborating on what motion he would have taken.
Mr. Trump mentioned the aim of final week’s name with Mr. Putin was “to debate nuclear proliferation,” calling that challenge “a a lot larger drawback than world warming.”
Requested straight in regards to the bounties, Mr. Trump mentioned, “I’ve by no means mentioned it with him.” Mr. Trump has spoken to the Russian chief quite a few occasions in latest months.
Though Mr. Trump forged the bounty allegation as a media fiction, U.S. intelligence analysts discovered proof of the scheme credible, though some intelligence officers have larger confidence on the query than others. The intelligence was supplied to Mr. Trump in a written briefing in February, however it’s unclear whether or not he learn it.
Mr. Trump advised Axios that the difficulty “by no means reached my desk” as a result of intelligence officers “didn’t assume it was actual.”
“If it reached my desk I’d have carried out one thing about it,” he mentioned, including: “I comprehend terribly effectively.”
Mr. Trump has lengthy taken pains to not personally criticize Mr. Putin, regardless of typically hostile relations between Washington and Moscow, and even appeared intent on downplaying proof of broader Russian navy and monetary help for the Taliban.
Requested about claims to that impact by the previous high U.S. basic in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., Mr. Trump dismissed the notion. “I didn’t ask Nicholson about that,” he mentioned, earlier than saying that the overall “didn’t have nice success” in his command, which resulted in 2018.
Mr. Trump additionally instructed that Russian backing for the Taliban could be a sort of comprehensible payback for America’s backing of fighters opposing the Soviet occupation of that nation in the course of the 1980s.
“Nicely we equipped weapons once they have been preventing Russia too,” Mr. Trump mentioned.
In an interview with the BBC in 2018, Common Nicholson, then the commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, mentioned publicly that the Russians have been sending weapons to the Taliban.
The accusation got here after months of American officers quietly asserting the rebel group was receiving help from the Kremlin beneath the guise of countering the newly assertive Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan’s east.
Common Nicholson by no means supplied any laborious proof of Russia’s meddling, although Russian officers have lengthy had connections to Afghan militias and different armed teams following the Soviet Union’s conflict in Afghanistan within the 1980s.
U.S. officers consider Russia has made important inroads with the Taliban because the Russians consider the Taliban will likely be a significant participant in Afghanistan following any peace negotiations with the U.S.-backed authorities in Kabul and the whole withdrawal of U.S. troops within the coming months.
Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed reporting.