The Taliban has issued a statement on Wednesday, stating that the planned withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan is synonymous to America’s pullout from Vietnam and called the move a “declare victory and run” strategy.

According to Associated Press, the militant group referred to the ongoing transfer of security operations from U.S. troops to Afghan forces  as merely a retreat similar to the American withdrawal from South Vietnam prior to the communist victory there in 1975.

“They want to flee from Afghanistan just as they turned tail and ran from Vietnam,” the Taliban statement said. “When America faced utter destruction in Vietnam, they came up with the formula `declare victory and run’ and want to utilize the formula of `transfer security and run’ here in Afghanistan.”

The United States withdrew its combat troops from South Vietnam in 1973, leaving South Vietnamese forces to face the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong who marched into the capital, Saigon, two years later.

In the case of Afghanistan, the U.S. troops are scheduled to leave the country by the end of 2014 after more than a decade of bloodshed. The White House has been reportedly weighing plans to keep 10,000 troops in the land, but as of November 2012, final decisions on the size  of American presence that will stay behind after 2014 have not been made.