WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pushed back on what he called inaccurate news reports regarding the U.S. plans to withdraw its military forces from Afghanistan by 2020.
“I wish reporters had been a little more careful in what they had said. They got it wrong,” Pompeo told reporters Tuesday en route to the Indo-Pacific region for a weeklong series of meetings in Thailand, Australia, and the Federated States of Micronesia.
“There’s no deadline for this,” he said of withdrawing from Afghanistan.
Many U.S. media outlets painted Pompeo’s remarks as a tacit declaration that the 2020 election was driving the withdrawal timeline.
