President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States is in discussions with the Taliban to regain control of Bagram Air Base, which fell to the group after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

Trump told reporters at the White House that that the US should never have left the base. His remarks came a day after he said at a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer that Washington was seeking to retake the base, once the hub of US military operations in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Taliban officials have rejected the prospect of any renewed US military presence. Zakir Jalal, a senior Afghan Foreign Ministry official, wrote Thursday on X that Afghanistan and the United States should engage “without America having any military presence in any part of Afghanistan.”

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that US officials are in the early stages of talks with the Taliban about the potential establishment of a limited counterterrorism presence at Bagram.