Trump says trying to 'get back' Bagram airbase from Afghanistan

The United States is trying to get Bagram air base in Afghanistan back, President Donald Trump said on Thursday during a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

The historic Soviet-built airstrip was the main base for American forces in Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001, attacks, up until their 2021 withdrawal led to a takeover by the Taliban movement.

"We're trying to get it back," Trump said, referring to Bagram, citing what he called its strategic location near China. "We want that base back."

Less than a month after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre, the US launched a massive attack on war-torn Afghanistan and within weeks its forces toppled down the Taliban-led government in Kabul.

After 20 years of Afghan invasion, the US-led Nato troops left Afghanistan in 2021. The US military death toll in the Afghan war since 2001 was roughly 2,500. Soon after the US pullout, the Taliban fighters regained control in Afghanistan in September 2021.

‘Unbreakable bond’

Addressing the joint presser, Trump hailed America's "unbreakable bond" with Britain as he and PM signed a huge tech deal on the second day of the US president's pomp-filled state visit.

A day after King Charles III treated Trump to a day of royal pageantry at Windsor Castle, Trump flew to Starmer's Chequers country residence for talks on thorny issues, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

But Britain's work in wooing the unpredictable Trump on his second state visit seemed to have paid off as he and Starmer signed the partnership, boosting ties in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and nuclear energy.

At the signing ceremony attended by a host of US tech CEOs, Labour leader Starmer said he and Republican Trump were "leaders who genuinely like each other."

"It is the biggest investment package of its kind in British history by a country mile," he added.

Trump said the deal was "very big", and added of US relations with key NATO ally Britain that "it's an unbreakable bond we have, regardless of what we're doing today."

The deal comes on the back of pledges of a £150 billion ($205 billion) of investment into the UK from US giants including Microsoft, Google, and Blackstone.

Trump had earlier said goodbye to King Charles at Windsor, calling him a "great gentleman and a great king" as he left the castle following a lavish state banquet, carriage ride, and military flypast.