President Ashraf Ghani met with US Vice President Mike Pence at the Presidential Palace on Thursday night. The two sides discussed Afghanistan’s situation and the US and Afghan forces mission in the country. 

The US vice president made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Thursday night. 

He landed at Bagram Airfield at 7:16pm Kabul time, according to CNN. The trip made Pence the highest-ranking Trump administration official to visit an active US combat zone and came four months after US President Donald Trump announced his new strategy on Afghanistan and South Asia and committed several thousand more US troops to the 16-year Afghan mission. 

During the meeting, Ghani and Pence discussed the changes to the US strategy in Afghanistan, progress against Taliban militants and terrorist groups and the country's delicate political state of affairs.

President Ghani thanked the US forces for their support to the fight against terrorism, the Presidential Palace said in a statement on Friday.

Ghani said the Afghan-US relations is based on mutual and strategic interests between the two countries and that they would strengthen further.

He said the new US strategy on Afghanistan and South Asia is a good opportunity towards a peaceful and stable Afghanistan and region. He stressed on the implementation of the strategy.

Ghani said peace and stability in Afghanistan is important for a stable and developed region. 

"We're here to see this through," Pence told Ghani. "We believe that we are now on a path to achieving a lasting victory for freedom and security in Afghanistan."

About an hour and a half later, Pence was back on the military base in Bagram to rally several hundred US troops. 

"The United States of America will no longer be bound by arbitrary timetables in Afghanistan. As the President said, America's enemies must never know our plans. They must never believe they can wait us out. Instead our decisions will be based on an objective assessment of conditions on the ground," Pence told US troops. "A relentless pursuit of victory will guide us and nothing else."

During his visit, Pence touted the new US strategy and stressed the US's to achieving victory here.

"I believe victory is closer than ever before," Pence told troops here late Thursday night.

Reporters traveling with Pence agreed to keep the trip secret until an hour before Pence was scheduled to fly back to the US.