A breakthrough Qatar Airways flight departed Kabul’s international airport with fewer U.S.-bound passengers than American officials at first hoped, a State Department official acknowledged
“We invited more than 30 American citizens and LPRs [lawful permanent residents] to be on this flight,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters. “Not all of them ultimately chose to depart Afghanistan today.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has emphasized that such Americans and green cardholders in Afghanistan have a right to change their mind and still receive State Department help in the future. Yet, the initial refusal underscores the difficulty of securing the evacuation of all Americans and the opportunity their presence affords the regnant Taliban regime, according to Republican lawmakers wary of concessions to the militants.
“The Biden Administration must continue to force pressure on the Taliban to allow the safe passage of Americans, lawful permanent residents, and their families to leave Afghanistan,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Florida Republican Rep. Mike Waltz said earlier Thursday in a joint statement. “Any agreement to allow safe passage should not be paired with the promises of U.S aid, dropping of terrorists from US or other sanctions lists, or the release of frozen financial assets.”
The lawmakers assessed “that the Taliban are seeking to hold family members of American visa holders hostage to gain leverage over the United States.” Price, for his part, acknowledged that family ties bound some of the people invited to leave the country Thursday.
“Some wanted more time to consider it,” he said. “Others wanted to remain with extended family, at least for the time being. Others cited medical issues, among other reasons that we heard.”
Blinken assessed, after the evacuation operation drew to a close at the end of August, that “under 200 and likely closer to 100” Americans in Afghanistan wanted to leave the country. State Department officials assessed that another “group of roughly 280 individuals who have self-identified as Americans in Afghanistan” had not chosen to leave, but that number is in flux as living conditions in Afghanistan deteriorate and the Taliban’s government takes shape.
“We will continue to offer these American citizens going forward, indefinitely, the opportunity to depart Afghanistan, if they so choose,” Price said. “This opportunity doesn’t expire.”
Taliban officials are keeping a strict watch on who departs the country, in part, out of a desire to avoid losing the people who have the skills and training needed to run various institutions that were established over the two decades following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.
“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,” Blinken said Wednesday. “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.”
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White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s team credited the Taliban with having “been businesslike and professional” in the lead-up to the Qatar Airways flight. Price hesitated to forecast whether the militants would extend that courtesy to Afghan nationals who worked for the U.S. government but do not enjoy American citizenship — “we’re not ready to make sweeping categorical judgments,” he said — but suggested that U.S. officials would try to assist the relatives of Americans who hesitate to leave their families in Afghanistan.
“It is not only U.S. citizenship that may convey a reason to travel to the United States, to be granted entry into the United States, but there are other mechanisms through which individuals can travel,” Price said. “So we will explore all appropriate options, but those are discussions that we’ll have to have on an individualized basis, given the circumstances of each family and of each U.S. citizen.”
