Kabul  - Afghanistan’s Taliban government on Wednesday said it hoped for a “new chapter” in relations with the United States after Donald Trump’s presidential election victory.

The government hopes the future Trump administration “will take realistic steps toward concrete progress in relations between the two countries and both nations will be able to open a new chapter of relations”, foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said in a post on X.

He underscored that during former president Trump’s first term in power he presided over a peace deal with the Taliban that paved the way for the US withdrawal in 2021. The Doha agreement was signed on February 29, 2020, in the Gulf state of Qatar between the Taliban and the United States under Trump, but excluded Afghanistan’s then-ruling government.