LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday the G7 had agreed a plan to deal with the Taliban, with their number one condition being that militants must allow safe passage to Afghans wanting to leave the country even after an Aug. 31 deadline.
“What we've done today, the G7, is we've ... agreed not just a joint approach to dealing with the evacuation, but also a roadmap for the way in which we're going to engage with the Taliban,” Johnson said after an emergency virtual meeting of the leaders of the Group of Seven rich nations.
“The number one condition we're setting as G7 is that they've got to guarantee right the way through, through August 31 and beyond, safe passage for those who want to come out.
“Some of them will say that they don't accept that, some of them I hope will see the sense of that, because the G7 has very considerable leverage, economic, diplomatic and political.”
Johnson said the “huge leverage” which the G7 could wield over the Taliban after it seized control of the country just over a week ago included withholding substantial funds.
“What we're saying is Afghanistan can't lurch back into becoming a breeding ground of terror, Afghanistan can't become a narco state, girls have got to be educated up to the age of 18,” he said.
Johnson sidestepped a question about whether other G7 leaders had expressed frustration at US President Joe Biden over his handling of the crisis and refusal to extend the deadline for US troops remaining in Afghanistan.
“Let's be clear the immediate phase of the evacuation is actually ... a very considerable success by the military,” he said. “We're confident we can get thousands more out. But the situation at the airport is not getting any better. It's harrowing scenes for those who are trying to get out.”
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Taliban rulers, however, inisted that all foreign evacuations from the country must be completed by the Aug. 31 date.
Kabul airport has been mired in chaos as foreign citizens and Afghans fearing reprisals rush to leave after the takeover of the capital by the hardline Islamist Taliban on Aug. 15.
Biden, who said last week US troops may stay past Aug. 31 to evacuate Americans, will stick to a Pentagon recommendation to remove the troops by that date as long as the Taliban enables the United States to complete its evacuations, three officials said.
Two American officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was increasing concern about suicide bombings by Daesh militants at the airport. One official said it was no longer a question of if, but when, militants would attack and the priority was to get out before it happened.
The Taliban told the thousands of Afghans crowding into the airport in the hope of boarding flights that they had nothing to fear and should go home.
“We guarantee their security,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told a news conference in the capital, which Taliban fighters seized from the Western-backed government after two decades of war.
