Afghanistan’s Taliban government said it hoped for a “new chapter” in relations with the United States after Donald Trump’s presidential election victory, AFP reports.

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 spokesperson 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 “after which the 20-year occupation ended”.

“Americans are not ready to hand over the leadership of their great country to a woman,” Inamullah Samangani, head of the information and culture department in the historical Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, said in a post on X.