Afghanistan live news flights resume at Kabul airport reports Taliban leader in capital for talks

The Taliban’s most senior leader met with Qatar’s foreign minister before leaving the Middle East kingdom for Afghanistan, according to the Associated Press.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar met with Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on Tuesday, the US-based news agency said.

According to a statement seen by AP, the two “reviewed the latest security and political developments in Afghanistan, stressing the need for the protection of civilians, intensifying necessary efforts to achieve national reconciliation, working for a comprehensive political settlement and a peaceful transfer of power.”

A British charity which supports lone child refugees has called on the government to resettle at least 20,000 Afghans in the next two years as well as prioritising relatives and close family of British Citizens and residents, writes Lisa O’Carroll, a Guardian reporter.

Beth Gardiner-Smith, CEO of Safe Passage International, said it was being contacted “by many desperate families living in Britain with loved ones trapped in Afghanistan”.

The charity, which has worked for years with refugees in camps in Calais, Greece and elsewhere, has also asked the government to expand relocation efforts and through any future resettlement scheme.

“Without an ambitious commitment from the government now, we will see many more children risking their lives attempting to reach safety and family in the UK in the coming weeks and months,” Gardiner-Smith said.

Russia has hailed the Taliban’s initial assurances of their intentions since taking control of Afghanistan as a “positive signal” and said it supports “inclusive” political dialogue in the country.

Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, was quoted by AFP as saying:

I consider it a positive signal that the Taliban in Kabul are declaring and in practice showing their readiness to respect the opinion of others. In particular, they said that they are ready to discuss a government in which not only they but other Afghan representatives will also participate.

Lavrov told a meeting in Kaliningrad that Moscow wanted the formation of Kabul’s new government to be an inclusive process. “We support the beginning of an inclusive national dialogue with the participation of all of Afghanistan’s political, ethnic and religious groups,” he said in comments carried by the state-run Rossiya 24 television channel after the meeting.

Russia has in recent years reached out to the Taliban and hosted its representatives in Moscow several times, most recently last month. The Kremlin on Monday said it would decide on recognising the new Taliban government based on how responsibly the new authorities govern. Its ambassador to Afghanistan, Dmitry Zhirnov, was due to meet the Taliban on Tuesday.

Royal Navy vice-admiral Sir Ben Key said British armed forces “can’t afford to pause” as they work with US troops to help get about 6,000 people out of Afghanistan via Kabul. Key told Sky News:

The demand placed upon us is in the order of 6,000, both Arap (Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy) and entitled personnel.

Those numbers are changing all the time as we understand the scale of the ask â€" people are coming forward making themselves known through the FCDO consular services or into us under the Arap programme.

How long have we got to do it? We don’t really know, so every day we are working as hard as we can to bring as many forward into this pipeline as we possibly can.

Clearly there is a dynamic political situation running across the city.

We make no assumptions about that other than we really can’t afford to pause and wait.

Emmanuel Macron has been accused of pandering to the far right after he said France should have a robust plan to “anticipate and protect itself from a wave of migrants” from Afghanistan, our correspondent Kim Willsher in Paris reports.

In a televised address, the French president said Europe must help those most threatened by the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and that “dealing with those fleeing the Taliban would need an organised and fair international effort”. “Europe alone cannot assume the consequences of the current situation,” he said.

The statement, which came hours after desperate Afghans trying to flee the country were filmed clinging to the wheels of a plane and falling to the ground, led to criticism the president was pandering to far-right voters in preparation for next year’s presidential election, in which he is expected to seek a second term in office.

Read the full report here:

A top US defence official said plans were being made to temporarily house thousands of Afghans at three US military installations, AP reports.

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday that up to 22,000 Afghans and their families could be housed at the installations. Kirby did not identify more specific locations.

Thousands of Afghans who assisted the US as interpreters and in other roles have been desperate to leave Afghanistan since before the government fell to the Taliban over the weekend, in the shadow of a 31 August deadline for the withdrawal of US forces.
Kirby told ABC’s Good Morning America that the US defence and state departments were working together to evacuate as many Americans and Afghans as quickly as possible.

Kirby said several thousand US service members now arriving in Afghanistan would be there for the next couple of weeks to help with the evacuation.

Hundreds gather outside the international airport in Kabul on Tuesday.

Richard Engel, NBC’s chief foreign correspondent, has just posted a video on social media of women in Kabul protesting for their rights.

Richard Engel (@RichardEngel)

Brave Afghan women protesting for their rights in Kabul. “Work, education and political participation is every woman’s right” pic.twitter.com/BEW4aXNjEp

August 17, 2021

Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini said the gains Afghan women have made over the past 20 years are “up in the air”.

Hosseini, who wrote The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that “while the last 20 years have certainly been challenging and beset by missteps and tragedies, it is also true that there has been progress in Afghanistan”.

The “significant improvements and achievements” have included women serving in the Afghan parliament, becoming police chiefs and being part of the workforce, and millions of girls who had returned to school. He said: “Now all of that is up in the air and whether any of those gains will last remains to be seen.”

Hosseini, who was born in Kabul before moving to the US in 1980, said US president Joe Biden failed to show “empathy” for the Afghan people during a speech in which he said he stood “squarely” behind the US exit.

Hosseini told the programme that Biden did not give “a statement of empathy with the millions of Afghans whom the Americans have been calling partners now for 20 years, who are left behind and have to fend for themselves and face the very unenviable reality of having to live under a regime that proved to be extremely brutal when they were in charge in the 1990s”.

Hosseini is also a US goodwill envoy to the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the founder of the Khaled Hosseini Foundation which provides humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.

Germany has stopped development aid for Afghanistan for now, the minister responsible said on Tuesday. AFP reports: “State cooperation on development is suspended for the time being,” the development minister, Gerd Müller, said in an interview with the Rheinische Post newspaper. “We are working at pace to evacuate from Afghanistan those local development officials and NGO workers who want to leave.”

The German government had agreed to send €430m to Afghanistan a year, making it one of the biggest donors to the country. This money was intended to support the training of local police forces and strengthen the justice system, as well as furthering the rights of women and fighting corruption.

Speaking last week, the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, said the country was not “viable” without the support of international aid, AFP reports. “We will not send another cent to this country if the Taliban take complete control, introduce sharia law and turn it into a caliphate,” Maas said.

China has accused the US of leaving “an awful mess of unrest, division and broken families” in Afghanistan, as Beijing indicated it was ready to cooperate with the Taliban on development following the US withdrawal.

Speaking at a regular press briefing, Hua Chunying, spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, also lambasted Washington’s record of foreign interventions, saying: “America’s strength and role is destruction, not construction.”

Beijing fears Afghanistan, with which it shares a rugged 47-mile border, could become a staging point for Uyghur separatists in the sensitive border region of Xinjiang. A top-level Taliban delegation met with Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, in Tianjin last month, promising that Afghanistan would not be used as a base for militants. In exchange, China offered economic support and investment for Afghanistan’s reconstruction.

Hua on Monday said China was ready to continue “friendly and cooperative” relations with Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, as she urged it to both “make a clean break with international forces” and “prevent Afghanistan from becoming a gathering place for terrorists and extremists again”.

The UN has urged the Taliban to keep its “promises,” including pledges to grant an amnesty to former government workers, show inclusiveness for women and allow girls to remain in school.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva on Tuesday, Rupert Colville, the UN human rights spokesman, said:

The Taliban have made a number of statements that on the surface are reassuring. But their actions speak deeper than words, and it’s very early now it’s very fluid.

He said the Taliban’s promises “need to be honoured”, adding:

Understandably, given their past history, these declarations have been greeted with some skepticism. Nevertheless, the promises have been made, and whether or not they are honoured or broken will be closely scrutinised.

A Taliban spokesman has given an interview with a female newsreader on the private Afghan broadcaster Tolo, in what some are saying is an indication of a slightly milder attitude towards women.

Under Afghanistan’s previous Taliban regime, 1996-2001, women were rarely allowed outside the home. But earlier Enamullah Samangani, a member of the Taliban’s cultural commission, suggested under a new Taliban administration, women could even serve in government.

“The Islamic Emirate doesn’t want women to be victims,” Samangani said. “They should be in the government structure according to Shariah law.”

Meanwhile, in Kanul women in hijabs staged a brief demonstration, holding signs demanding the Taliban not “eliminate women” from public life.

Saad Mohseni (@saadmohseni)

TOLOnews and the Taliban making history again: Abdul Haq Hammad, senior Taliban rep, speaking to our (female) presenter Beheshta earlier this morning. Unthinkable two decades ago when they were last in charge ⁦@TOLOnews⁩ pic.twitter.com/XzREQ6ZJ1a

August 17, 2021

The UN refugee agency has called for the suspension of forced returns of Afghan nationals, including those whose claims for asylum have been rejected, until the political situation in the country has stabilised.

In a new position paper, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said it was concerned about the risk of human rights abuses in the country, particularly against women and girls, and against Afghans who had worked with occupying forece, NGOs and the previous Afghan government.

It calls for countries to give civilians fleeing Afghanistan access to their territories, and to respect their right not to be returned to where they will be at risk of persecution.

Afghans who had already claimed asylum abroad and been refused may need to be reconsidered in light of the new circumstances in Afghanistan, the paper says.

It adds: “A moratorium on forced returns to Afghanistan would need to stay in place until the situation in the country has stabilised, pending an assessment of when the changed situation in the country would permit return in safety and dignity.

“The bar on forcible return serves as a minimum standard and needs to remain in place until such time as the security, rule of law, and human rights situation in Afghanistan has significantly improved to permit a safe and dignified return of those determined not to be in need of international protection.”

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