Discussing the U.S.-Taliban agreement, CENTCOM Commander Kenneth McKenzie remarked that “we have met our part of the agreement. We agreed to go to mid 8000 range [of personnel] within 135 days. We're at that number now”. He added that “we’ve agreed by May of 2021 would eventually go to zero. We can do that. But we have noted all along that is a condition based approach”. “The other part of the equation,” McKenzie added, “is the Taliban are maintaining a very high a high level of violence against Afghan military forces. They are scrupulously avoiding attacking coalition and U.S. forces. And they stayed out of the cities. But the level of violence is still too high. That level of violence needs to come down. They need to show that they're going to be willing partners to reduce it and enter into a negotiation with the government of Afghanistan”.