The main challenge in evacuating French citizens and Afghan staff who worked for French authorities is the difficulty of reaching Kabul airport, French defence minister Florence Parly said on Tuesday.
Parly spoke as a first flight with 40 evacuees – French, Afghan and other nationals – landed at a Paris airport, Reuters reports.
“The situation at Kabul airport remains very chaotic and access to the airport is extremely difficult,” Parly told reporters.
She said that France relies on the United States army to provide security for Kabul airport and that further evacuation flights would depend on getting landing slots.
You can read the Guardian’s full report on the Taliban press conference here:
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid gestures as he arrives at the press conference in Kabul.
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid (L) gestures as he arrives to hold the first press conference in Kabul on August 17, 2021 Photograph: Hoshang Hashimi/AFP/Getty Images
People fleeing Taliban rule in Afghanistan are due to arrive imminently in Manchester where they will be temporarily housed in hotels, the city council leader has said.
Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester city council, said Afghan nationals were “on their way” and that their planes would be landing “any moment”.
Some of the arrivals are expected to be housed at two airport hotels in Manchester although details are yet to be confirmed by Manchester city council.
Leese said: “We’re certainly not going to turn our back on those people. What we are certainly going to do is make the case that if we are really a caring country we need to make sure we put the proper resources and systems in to support these people very, very quickly [and] get them out of hotels and get them into homes… We’ll continue to make that case for proper support.”
More from the Taliban’s first press conference. Interpreters and contractors who supported allied efforts will be pardoned.
According to a translation by Al Jazeera, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, said:
I would like to reassure all the compatriots, whether they were translators, whether they had military activities or whether they have been civilians, all of them have been pardoned.
Nobody is going to be treated with revenge.
The youths who have talents, who have grown up here – we do not want them to leave. These are our assets, we would like them to stay here to serve.
We would like to assure you that no one is going to knock on their door to inspect them or to ask them or interrogate them as to who they have been working for or interpreting for.
I would like to assure you that no harm is going to come, they are going to be safe.
Any Taliban soldiers who have carried out house-to-house inspections are “abusers” and will be “chased and investigated”, Mujahid said.
The Russian ambassador to Afghanistan said he had a “constructive” and “positive” meeting with Taliban representatives in Kabul to discuss security for the Russian diplomatic mission, AP reports.
Ambassador Dmitry Zhirnov told Russian state TV on Tuesday that the meeting was “dedicated exclusively to the security of the embassy” and involved “senior Taliban representatives in the city who were accepting the surrender of the remnants of the self-disbanded Afghan national security forces”.
“The meeting was positive and constructive,” Zhirnov said. “The Taliban representatives said the Taliban has the friendliest … approach to Russia. They confirmed guarantees of security for the embassy.”
Russia designated the Taliban a terrorist organisation in 2003, but has since hosted several rounds of talks in Afghanistan, most recently in March, that involved the group.
Moscow, which fought a 10-year war in Afghanistan that ended with the Soviet troops’ withdrawal in 1989, has made a diplomatic comeback as a mediator, reaching out to feuding Afghan factions as it has jockeyed with the US for influence in the country, AP reports.
The Taliban are committed to a “free and independent media”, Mujahid said.
However, he said he had “requests” for the media including that “nothing should be against Islamic values when it comes to the activities of the media, therefore Islamic values should be taken into account when it comes to the activities of the media”.
He said the media “should not work against national values, against national unity”.
He said: “When it comes to ethnic differences, religious differences and hostilities, they should not be actually promoted by the media, they should work … for the unity of the nation to have peaceful, brotherly living together.”
On women’s rights, Mujahid said the issue was “very important”. He told journalists in Kabul:
The Islamic Emirate is committed to the rights of women within the framework of sharia.
Our sisters … have the same rights, will be able to benefit from their rights. They can have activities in different sectors and different areas on the basis of our rules and regulations, educational, health and other areas.
They are going to be working with us, shoulder to shoulder with us, and the international community – if they have concerns – we would like to assure them that there is not going to be any discrimination against women, but of course within the frameworks that we have.
Mujahid claimed the group had planned to stop at the gates to Kabul but said that because the previous administration was “so incompetent”, they had moved into the city to “ensure security”.
He said the security of foreign embassies was of “crucial importance” and that residents of Kabul should “be assured that your security is guaranteed”, PA reports. He added: “I would like to assure the international community including the United States that nobody will be harmed in Afghanistan, I would like to assure our neighbours, regional countries, we are not going to allow our territory to be used against anybody, any country in the world.”
Mujahid said the Taliban should be “treated accordingly” by the international community.
“We do not want to have any problem with the international community,” he said. “We have the right to act on the basis of our religious principles and rules and regulations, this is the right of Afghans.”
Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman, addressing the Taliban’s first press conference in Kabul today.
Mujahid told the press conference: “Freedom and independence-seeking is a legitimate right of every nation.”
PA reports he said: “The Islamic Emirate – after the freedom of this nation – is not going to revenge anybody, we do not have any grudges against anybody.
“We know that we have been undergoing very challenging periods and crises, a lot of mistakes were made that were in the advantage of the occupiers.
“We want to make sure that Afghanistan is not the field of conflict, the battlefield of conflict, any more.”
He added: “We have pardoned anyone, all those who have fought against us. We don’t want to repeat any conflict, any war, again, and we want to do away with the factors for conflict.
“Therefore, the Islamic Emirate does not have any kind of hostility or animosity with anyone, animosities have come to an end, and we would like to live peacefully. We don’t want any internal enemies and any external enemies.”
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, appearing before cameras for the first time, said the group pledged to secure Afghanistan and sought no revenge and that “everyone is forgiven”.
The Taliban are holding news conference in Kabul. It is the first time they have addressed the nation since taking control of the country.
Taliban checks at Kabul airport are making it more difficult to evacuate Afghans who worked for western forces, the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, said on Tuesday as international forces scrambled to get people out of the country, AFP reports.
“The situation is much more dangerous (for Afghans) because there is no promise of being let through at the Taliban checkpoints,” AFP reported Maas saying ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers.
He added that German and US forces were working to grant them safe access to the airport, which was mobbed by thousands of panicked people trying to escape on Monday after the Taliban seized control of the country.
According to a government report seen by AFP on Tuesday, the situation has calmed down since the Taliban set up security posts around the airport.
This is making it easier for international forces to evacuate their nationals but “the closure of the airport to Afghan nationals is making it more difficult to evacuate former Afghan local staff”, the document said.
Speaking in Berlin on Tuesday, theGerman chancellor, Angela Merkel, said the big question over the next few days would be “above all, how many can reach the airport in Kabul”.
Berlin estimates that 2,500 local employees who worked with German troops or at the embassy, as well as their family members, need to be evacuated from the country.
Another 2,000 Afghans, such as human rights activists or employees of non-governmental organisations, also need to be brought out of the country. The number swells to 10,000 if their family members are included.
The Afghan vice-president, Amrullah Saleh, said on Twitter on Tuesday he is in Afghanistan and is the “legitimate caretaker president”.
Saleh had said after a security meeting chaired by the then president, Ashraf Ghani, last week that he was proud of the armed forces and the government would do all it could to strengthen resistance to the Taliban. President Ghani earlier left the country amid the Taliban advance and his whereabouts remain unknown.
Amrullah Saleh (@AmrullahSaleh2)
Clarity: As per d constitution of Afg, in absence, escape, resignation or death of the President the FVP becomes the caretaker President. I am currently inside my country & am the legitimate care taker President. Am reaching out to all leaders to secure their support & consensus.
US, UK and other western forces have helped to secure Kabul’s international airport, allowing the RAF to begin mass airlifts out of the Afghan capital, the commander of Britain’s evacuation effort has said, Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defence and security editor, reports.
V-Adm Ben Key, the commander of joint operations, said there was now “considerably greater stability” on the ground, ending the “distressing scenes” of Monday when some desperate Afghans clung to military aircraft as they took off.
The plan was to “create capacity” for “around 1,000 outward passengers every day,” he added, in the hope of evacuating an estimated 3,000 Britons and dual nationals still the country, plus a further 3,000 Afghans eligible for resettlement in the UK.
But the British commander acknowledged that the Taliban could close the airport at any time, and said: “We may well find that the security situation on the ground may make it untenable to continue to evacuate other people.”
Read the full report here:
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