Blinken at Doha talks, assures Afghans can exit their country
Top officials from US and Qatar discuss the need for speeding up evacuations from Afghanistan, and the road ahead as Taliban start to run the nation
DOHA/KABUL/GENEVA: US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that the Taliban regime has reiterated a pledge to allow Afghan nationals to freely leave Afghanistan following his meeting with top Qatari officials on the need for accelerating evacuations from the country.
US President Joe Biden has faced mounting pressure amid reports that several hundred people, also including Americans, had been prevented for a week from flying out of an airport in northern Afghanistan.
The Taliban told the US that “they will let people with travel documents freely depart”, Blinken told reporters in Doha where he and US defence secretary Lloyd Austin met their Qatari counterparts.
“We will hold them to that,” Blinken said.
Qatar said that Kabul airport, largely closed since the conclusion of Washington’s chaotic withdrawal from the country at the end of August, would hopefully reopen soon, potentially opening an important corridor for Afghans seeking to leave.
“The entire international community is looking to the Taliban to uphold that commitment,” Blinken said, referring to a UN Security Council resolution that urged safe passage.
Biden’s senior cabinet members had dinner on arrival on Monday with Qatar’s ruler Emir Sheikh Tamim Al-Thani where they expressed Washington’s thanks to Doha for its assistance with the Afghanistan airlift.
Qatar was the transit point for nearly half of the more than 120,000 people evacuated from Afghanistan in the final days of the 20-year US war as the Taliban took over.
The US on Monday facilitated the evacuation of four Americans from the same family by land out of Afghanistan, the first departures arranged by Washington since the military pullout. A state department official said the Taliban were aware of the operation and did not interfere.
But non-governmental organisations say that some 600 to 1,300 people - including girls and US citizens - are stuck at the airport in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Marina LeGree, the founder and executive director of an American nongovernmental organisation that is active in Afghanistan, told AFP that the Taliban are not letting anyone through.
UN says basic services in Afghanistan collapsing
Afghanistan is facing the collapse of basic services and food and other aid is about to run out, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Tuesday.
OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke told a UN briefing in Geneva that millions of Afghans were in need of food aid and health assistance.
“Basic services in Afghanistan are collapsing and food and other lifesaving aid is about to run out,” he said. “We urge international donors to support this appeal fast and generously.”