Taliban forces “are not permitting” the takeoff of charter flights from a city in Afghanistan, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who also acknowledged “further complications” after repeated administration assurances that the United States had sufficient “leverage” to ensure continued safe departures after last month’s withdrawal deadline.
“As of now, the Taliban are not permitting the charter flights to depart,” Blinken told reporters Wednesday at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. “We’ve made clear to all parties, we made clear to the Taliban, that these charters need to be able to depart, and we continue every day, virtually every hour, to work on that.”
Those grounded charter flights have attracted a political storm as a discrete image of troubles that await at-risk Afghans and U.S. citizens left behind when the U.S. military left the country following a tumultuous evacuation from Kabul’s international airport. They also have led to a fresh round of scrutiny of Biden administration promises that people who wanted to leave Afghanistan would be permitted to do so, even after the withdrawal was complete.
The Biden administration has repeatedly said the Taliban’s desire for acceptance in the international community and access to global markets would put pressure on Kabul to behave in accordance with Washington’s expectations.
Blinken, who denied that there is “any hostage-like situation in Mazar-e-Sharif” in a separate press conference Tuesday, put rhetorical pressure on the Taliban while touting the State Department’s work to address other problems.
“Many of these flights have been organized by NGOs are individuals who have a deeply felt desire to help people … but there’s also a risk of people looking to extort money from desperate and vulnerable people, which, of course, we want to prevent,” Blinken said. “Additionally, some of the groups claiming to have all of the documentations and arrangements locked down, unfortunately, don’t — often for good reason. But, this creates further complications.”
The Taliban has refused to allow the departure of people who have “valid” U.S. travel documents, Blinken said Tuesday, creating an impediment for groups of Americans or Afghan visa holders who are traveling with people who do not have such documents. Taliban officials worry that educated Afghans are going to flee in droves, taking with them the skills that the militant group needs to run the country in the absence of U.S. forces and contractors.
“This country needs their expertise,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said last month during the evacuation operation. “They should not be taken to other countries.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Blinken brushed off that concern earlier Wednesday at the outset of a virtual ministerial on Afghanistan, which he co-hosted from Ramstein with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.
“We’ve heard in some of our engagements with the Taliban their concern about a so-called brain drain and people with knowledge and expertise leaving the country,” he said. “And one of the things that we shared with them was, the best way to get people to stay in Afghanistan is to allow them to leave Afghanistan as well as to uphold their basic rights. Whether they will take that to heart remains to be seen.”
