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"This continues
to be an organization that sees violence as a strategy for
obtaining its goals and moving its agenda forward in
Afghanistan," said Obama, told reporters during a Group of Seven
summit at Ise-Shima in central Japan.
"In the short-term, we anticipate that the Taliban will continue
to pursue an agenda of violence and blowing up innocent people."
"Our goal right now is to make sure (Afghanistan's) constitution
and democratic process is upheld (and) maintain the
counter-terrorism platforms that we need in the region so that
al Qaeda and now ISIL are not able to take root and use it as a
base to attack us in the United States," he said, using an
acronym for Islamic State.
The selection of cleric Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada as the new
Taliban chief on Wednesday all but dashes Obama's hopes for
opening peace talks before he leaves office, one of his top
foreign policy goals, current and former U.S. defense and
intelligence officials said.
Akhundzada, a conservative Islamic scholar from the Taliban's
stronghold in southern Afghanistan, succeeded Mullah Akhtar
Mansour four days after he was killed in a U.S. drone strike.
Some U.S. officials had expressed hope that Mansour's death
would eliminate an obstacle to peace negotiations between the
Taliban and the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
(Reporting by Thomas Wilson and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by
Robert Birsel)
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