In June 2011, Hague said that Britain helped initiate "distasteful" peace talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Hague made the comments while on a three-day tour of the country to meet President Hamid Karzai and visited British troops. He told "The Sun" newspaper that Britain had led the way in persuading US President Barack Obama's administration that negotiation was the best potential solution to the conflict. Hague admitted that any deal might mean accepting "distasteful things" and could anger military veterans and relatives of the 374 British troops killed in Afghanistan. However, he said he believed that Britain as a whole was "realistic and practical" enough to accept that ending fighting and starting talks was the best way to safeguard national security. He told the newspaper: "An eventual settlement of these issues is the ultimate and most desirable way of safeguarding that national security." He added, "but reconciliation with people who have been in a military conflict can be very distasteful. In all these types of situations, you do have to face up to some distasteful things." The previous night US President Barack Obama told Americans that "the tide of war is receding" as he announced plans to withdraw 33,000 US troops from Afghanistan by September 2012.