Jarring words that will haunt UK’s f leeing ambassador
SIR Laurie Bristow’s tenure as Britain’s top diplomat in Afghanistan may also be one of the shortest for a UK ambassador to the wartorn country.
The career diplomat touched down in Kabul in the middle of June, less than a month before the Taliban advance across large parts of Afghanistan began.
And when Sir Laurie presented his credentials to Afghan President Ash rafG ha ni, he tweeted a message about Britain’ s engagement in the country that now sounds rather incongruous.
‘The UK’s commitment to Afghanistan remains as strong as ever,’ he said.
‘We support an inclusive peace process, we are partners in countering terrorism and we provide substantial development and humanitarian support.
‘It’s a privilege to be here at such a pivotal time.’
But as he flees Kabul, the message appears to jar with reality.
The country has been his toughest task yet in a Foreign Office career that began in 1990, after the grammar school boy from Colchester left Trinity College, Cambridge, with a PhD on the poet Ezra Pound.
Before Kabul, Sir Laurie had a brief stint as the British ambassador to the COP26 conference. Previously, he was Our Man in Moscow, at a time when the relationship between Britain and Russia was difficult because of the Novichok poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury.
He even appeared on Moscow TV in February 2019, trying to scotch conspiracy theories in the country that the Skripals were dead. He told the Russian public that the pair were alive, but did not want any consular assistance from the Russian embassy in London.
Sir Laurie also served as ambassador in Azerbaijan and Turkey.