Garneau cites ‘economic leverage’ as Taliban pledges safe passage

The Taliban have pledged free passage out of Afghanistan for people authorized to travel to other countries, even after the American military departs on its deadline this Tuesday, according to a joint statement of governments around the world, including Canada.

“We are all committed to ensuring that our citizens, nationals and residents, employees, Afghans who have worked with us and those who are at risk can continue to travel freely to destinations outside Afghanistan,” reads the letter signed by nearly 100 countries.

In interviews with CBC on Sunday before the statement was released, Marc Garneau, Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, said Canada is not in direct contact with the Taliban, but is working through allies who are, such as the United States and France. He said Canada's leverage over the Taliban to help ensure the safety of people left behind is “primarily economic,” basically involving humanitarian aid.

“There's all sorts of leverage with respect to the Taliban, who are now confronting the fact they're in charge and they're going to have to make the country work,” Garneau said.

Passage out of Afghanistan is easier said than done, however, now that the Kabul airport is over-run and evacuation flights appear to have been stopped for good.

The rapid fall of the country to the militant and theocratic Taliban, which means “students” and is designated a terrorist organization by Canada, meant the evacuation over the past few weeks was chaotic.

The capital Kabul's Hamid Karzai airport became a thronging mass of refugees, threatened by Tali-ban, targeted by Islamic State suicide bombers, overseen by spent foreign forces, and eventually left behind by the countries such as Canada whose final flights left last week. Realization that the skies have closed has spurred many of those left behind into a desperate jour-ney toward land borders, mainly Pakistan, over difficult roads that bear the scars of the long-running Afghan war.

In the south, people fleeing Kandahar have fled to the border town of Spin Boldak and onward into Pakistan toward Quetta. From Kabul, the closest exit is eastwards to Jalalabad and through the Khyber Pass to Peshawar. None of the countries bordering Afghanistan are signatories to the safe passage agreement. They include Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to the north, and Iran to the west. None have good diplomatic relations with Canada.

The joint statement takes note of the Taliban's public confirmation of the deal, and said travel documents will continue to be issued.

“We have received assurances from the Taliban that all foreign nationals and any Afghan citizen with travel authorization from our countries will be allowed to proceed in a safe and orderly man-ner to points of departure and travel outside the country,” the statement reads.

“We will continue issuing travel documentation to designated Afghans, and we have the clear ex-pectation of and commitment from the Taliban that they can travel to our respective countries. We note the public statements of the Taliban confirming this understanding.”