US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Afghanistan to resolve the political disputes between Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, but his meeting with them faced a flop. The State Department issued a statement criticizing the Afghan leaders: “Because this leadership failure poses a direct threat to the US national interests, effective immediately, the US government will initiate a review of the scope of our cooperation with Afghanistan.

After six months of electoral chaos over its results, two front-running candidates swore in as Afghan presidents in separate oath ceremonies. Both have named their victories as "the victories of the Republic and Democracy".

In a message reflecting their official stance, the Taliban said that they have decently carried out their entire obligations during the peace talks, but it is the US which has been repeatedly delaying the talks by proposing new ‘demands, concerns and excuses’. The spokesman for the group has hitherto said in response to the US Secretary of State’s comments, “Mr. Pompeo should not shift the blame.”

Rahmatullah Nabil, one of the presidential candidates and a former director of National Directorate of Security (NDS), during a press conference on the elections impasse on Thursday stated that, “The matter of ISIS is getting more serious ...  organizations and parties that carry anonymous titles have been making their position very clear nowadays.