US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed in a telephone call to hold an online summit for the seven major industrialized countries, the White House said. The UN Human Rights Council holds a special session next Tuesday over “serious human rights concerns”.
In a video conference, the G7 – which, in addition to the USA and Great Britain, also include Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada – are to discuss a common strategy and approach towards Afghanistan. In their phone call, Biden and Johnson spoke about the need for allies and democratic partners to continuously coordinate their Afghanistan policy closely. This also applies to ways in which the international community can provide humanitarian support to refugees from Afghanistan, said the White House.
Biden announced last month that US troops would be completely withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of August – after which other NATO partners would also bring their soldiers home. As a result, the advance of the Taliban accelerated enormously. The US president is heavily criticized for his decision and the dramatic consequences.
After a rapid conquest in recent weeks and the flight of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani almost 20 years after the start of the US-led military operation, the Taliban have effectively taken power again in the country. Many Afghans fear a return to the reign of terror as it did in the 1990s. Back then, women and girls were systematically suppressed, and artists and the media were censored. And the Islamists enforced their ideas with barbaric punishments.
“Serious human rights concerns” after the Taliban came to power are the reason for the special session of the UN Human Rights Council. This was applied for by the representatives of Pakistan and Afghanistan themselves, and is supported by numerous countries. The UN refugee agency UNHCR had previously called for a general refusal to deport Afghans to their homeland in view of the “rapid deterioration” of the security and human rights situation in large parts of Afghanistan.
The militant Islamist Taliban on Tuesday at their first press conference after the seizure of power had adopted an emphatically conciliatory tone and tried to lull the people of the country into safety. Among other things, they asserted that they wanted more political forces to participate in power in Afghanistan and that they would campaign for the rights of women within the framework of Islamic Sharia law. Your compatriots have nothing to fear – not even those who were in opposition to the Islamists.
The US government reacted cautiously. Jake Sullivan, Biden’s National Security Advisor, said when asked whether he trusted the Taliban’s announcements: “This is not about trust.” The Taliban would have to be measured by their words. With a view to the ongoing evacuation campaigns in Kabul, the USA is currently in talks with the Taliban. Sullivan reported that the Islamists had promised to let civilians into the airport unmolested – and that people “by and large” managed to do that too. But “there have been cases where we have been told that people have been turned away or pushed back or even beaten”.
The airport in the capital, Kabul, is considered to be the last area where the Taliban are not in control. The foreign workers still remaining in the country have withdrawn there. Many Afghans who want to flee also flocked there – in a desperate attempt to get on board a plane that will take them out of the country.
In the past few days, chaotic scenes had played out at the airport. A US Air Force plane, for example, took off there on Monday – surrounded by hundreds of civilians on the tarmac; the images of attempts to get on board went around the world. After landing in Qatar, “human remains” were discovered in the landing gear, the US Air Force announced on Tuesday (local time). The incident is now being investigated.
The US has now sent several thousand soldiers to the airport in Kabul to ensure the security of the airport and to organize the evacuation, among others, of Americans and former Afghan employees of the US armed forces who want to flee for fear of acts of revenge by the Taliban. The White House announced on Tuesday evening (local time) that around 1,100 people had been flown out in US military aircraft during the day, and that the US had evacuated around 3,200 people in total so far. In addition, there are almost 2,000 Afghans who were brought to the United States on special visas.
The Bundeswehr has also started an airlift to rescue Germans and Afghans. According to the Defense Ministry, 260 people had been flown out by Tuesday evening. The first evacuated employees of the embassy in Kabul are now back in Germany.
Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP) has announced that he will be sending a crisis team to Afghanistan to help those Austrians who are still there to leave the country. Around 25 Austrians and around 20 Afghans with valid residence permits in Austria had reported in the past 72 hours and asked for help with their departure. Austria is not sending its own plane because the problem is currently not the flight capacity, but to get to the airport, said Schallenberg.
