U.S. President Donald Trump, asked about the state of U.S.-Taliban peace talks, has said: "They're dead. As far as I'm concerned, they're dead."
Trump made the comments while addressing reporters at the White House on September 9, two days after he announced on Twitter that he had cancelled secret talks with Afghan and Taliban officials in the United States.
He reiterated earlier statements that he made the decision after the Taliban carried out a recent car bombing in Kabul that killed 12 people, including a U.S. soldier.
"They thought they had to kill people in order to put themselves in a little better negotiating position. When they did that they killed 12 people," Trump said.
"You can't do that can't do that with me," he added, saying that "we've hit the Taliban harder in the last four days that they've been hit in over 10 years. So that's the way it is."
Trump said that the plan to invite the Taliban, who have been involved in Afghan peace negotiations with the United States for months, to the U.S. presidential retreat Camp David "was my idea, and it was my idea to terminate it."
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Trump, who has said he would like to reduce U.S. troop numbers to about 8,600, addressed promises made since his presidential campaign to leave Afghanistan.
"Yeah, we'd like to get out," he said. "But we'll get out at the right time."
The annexation of the Jordan Valley will be Netanyahu's first step if elected next week, the Prime Minister said, with further land claims to come after the publication of US President Donald Trump's long-awaited Israel-Palestine peace plan. Netanyahu called the plan a "historic opportunity" to negotiate the future of the region with Trump.
Though he did not address the matter directly, some observers took Netanyahu's bold pronouncement as evidence that the annexation had been coordinated with Trump. However, the Israeli leader instead asked voters for the mandate to make Israel's case to the US.
"Who will negotiate with Trump, who will conscript him on our side?" he asked, "me or Lapid and Gantz?" referring to opposition leaders Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz.
Some commenters, however, saw Tuesday's announcement as mere election bluster. The speech was "a clear play by Likud for right-wing votes," wrote Israeli journalist Neri Zilber.
"It's a meaningless policy/diversion tactic to wrest control of the agenda and take votes away from other right-wing parties," Haaretz journalist Anshel Pfeffer commented. "He hasn't got an annexation policy. Yet."
Speaking shortly before Netanyahu's announcement, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh called his Israeli counterpart the "chief destroyer of the peace process," and warned that "any foolish move he makes will have negative consequences for him in the domestic and international arena."
Though it lies within Palestinian territory, the area concerned is currently under full Israeli control, and has been since the signing of the Oslo Accords by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel in 1993 and 1995. The Jordan Valley makes up 60 percent of the West Bank's territory, but is sparsely populated.
Though "annexation" is a headline-grabbing word, Netanyahu had already ruled out an Israeli withdrawal from the area earlier this summer. Speaking with US National Security Advisor John Bolton in June, Netanyahu stated that any future peace plan with the Palestinians must guarantee Israel a presence in the Jordan Valley, which he said "guarantees stability and security for the entire region."
Before hanging on to power in April's election, Netanyahu also said he would move to annex the West Bank if elected, claiming "a Palestinian state will endanger our existence."
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