Late Sunday, a group of over 60 countries released a joint statement urging the Taliban to enable foreign nationals and Afghans to leave Kabul safely.
Afghans and international citizens who desire to leave must be allowed to do so, according to the statement, which also stated that roads, airports, and border crossings must stay open and that calm must prevail.
“The Afghan people deserve to live in safety, security, and dignity. We in the international community stand ready to assist them,” the joint statement distributed by the State Department stated.
After the Taliban took possession of the presidential palace in Kabul, the Taliban declared the Afghan war to be ended, as US-led forces and other nations hurried to evacuate thousands of their residents.
A further 1,000 troops were deployed, on top of the 5,000 already committed by the Defense Department, to assist in the evacuation of Americans and also locally employed staff of the US mission in Kabul, as the Biden administration declared it would take over airspace to ease the exit of thousands of people.
The United States would “expand our security presence to approximately 6,000 soldiers, with a mission-focused entirely on assisting these operations, and will be taking over air traffic control” within the next 48 hours, according to a joint statement from the State Department and the Pentagon.
A senior government official reportedly Told that President Joe Biden is expected to speak to the country on the situation in The region in the coming days. Biden has been at Camp David for his summer holiday and was supposed to come back to the White House later this week.
Meanwhile, Blinken stated of the emerging scenario on ABC's "This Week" that the administration had taken a "painful choice" that it was necessary for the US to finish the war in Afghanistan, "to get out from the middle of a civil war in Afghanistan."
“Why is Joe Biden in hiding? He should immediately address the nation and answer for the catastrophic situation in Afghanistan. Conference calls between cabinet secretaries and senators don’t cut it in a crisis,” wrote Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who served tours in Afghanistan in the U.S. Army, on Twitter.
In February 2020, US Former President Trump reached an agreement with the Taliban to remove the US military by May 1. Biden, on the other hand, stated in April that all US soldiers would be withdrawn from the nation by September 11.
16 August 2021
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