Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on September 19, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Trump wants the US to regain control of Bagram air base in Afghanistan, citing its strategic location. Afghan officials oppose US military presence.
LONDON (Reuters) -The United States seeks to regain control of Bagram air base in Afghanistan, President Donald Trump said on Thursday during a press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, but an Afghan official dismissed the need for any U.S. presence.
The historic Soviet-built airstrip was the main base for American forces in the mountainous South Asian nation following the attacks of September 11, 2001, until their 2021 withdrawal led to a takeover by the Islamist Taliban movement.
"We're trying to get it back," Trump said of Bagram, citing what he called its strategic location near China. "We want that base back."
Kabul said it was not open to any such deal, however.
"Afghanistan and the United States need to engage with one another ... without the United States maintaining any military presence in any part of Afghanistan," Zakir Jalal, an Afghan foreign ministry official, said in a post on X.
The two nations could establish economic and political relations on the basis of mutual respect and shared interests, he added.
Engaging with Kabul to free citizens wrongly detained abroad, U.S. officials held talks on Saturday with Afghan authorities regarding Americans held in Afghanistan.
Adam Boehler, the Trump administration's special hostage envoy, and Zalmay Khalilzad, a former U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, met the Taliban's foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi.
Washington does not recognise the Taliban administration, which seized power in 2021 after 20 years of U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan.
(Reporting by Steve Holland, Andrea Shalal in London and Mohammad Yunus Yawar in Kabul; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Clarence Fernandez)
Bagram Air Base is a military installation in Afghanistan that served as a key operational hub for U.S. forces after the September 11 attacks until the withdrawal in 2021.
The Taliban is an Islamist militant group that gained control of Afghanistan in 2021 after the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces, following a two-decade military intervention.
A military presence refers to the deployment of armed forces in a specific location, often for strategic, security, or diplomatic purposes.
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