Trump says US seeks control of Afghanistan's Bagram air base given up in withdrawal

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)