US President Joe Biden said in a letter to Congress on Tuesday that Washington will continue to fully support peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban and will encourage other nations in the region, especially Pakistan, to do more to support stability in Afghanistan.

In his letter he stated that over the past few decades, the United States and its partners have trained hundreds of thousands of Afghan troops and that the US will with the support of Congress, “continue to support the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces”.

“We will also continue to support the rights of Afghan women and girls and to maintain significant humanitarian and development assistance to Afghanistan.

“We will continue to pursue diplomacy and fully support peace talks between the Government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, facilitated by the United Nations. And we will encourage other nations in the region, especially Pakistan, to do more to support Afghanistan and to support stability in the country,” Biden stated in the letter.

“But we will not allow United States troops to be a bargaining chip between warring parties in other countries. That is a recipe for staying indefinitely in Afghanistan,” he said.

He also stated the US will withdraw responsibly, deliberately, and safely, from Afghanistan, in full coordination with its allies and partners.

“Our NATO allies and operational partners, who have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with us for almost 20 years and who have also made great sacrifices, will now withdraw alongside our forces as we stand by our enduring principle of ‘in together, out together’.”

Giving background on his decision to leave Afghanistan, Biden stated that he reached this conclusion “after conducting a rigorous policy review process and consulting closely with our allies and partners, with our military leaders and intelligence personnel, with our diplomats and our development experts, with the Congress and the Vice President, and with the President of Afghanistan and many other leaders around the world.”

He noted however that over the last 20 years, the terrorist threat to the United States has become more dispersed around the globe and that keeping thousands of troops concentrated on the ground in Afghanistan “no longer makes sense as the most effective counterterrorism strategy when the threat has metastasized across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.”

“Our focus and posture need to adapt accordingly,” he said.

But according to him, the US will not take its eye off the terrorist threat in Afghanistan.

“The United States will reorganize our counterterrorism capabilities and assets in the region to prevent the reemergence of a terrorist threat in Afghanistan.

“We will hold the Taliban and the Afghan government accountable to their commitments not to allow terrorists to threaten the United States or its allies from Afghan soil. And we will refine our national strategy to monitor and disrupt terrorist threats wherever they arise,” he said to Congress.