China has said that imposing sanctions on the Taliban would be “counterproductive” ahead of the G7 meeting where leaders will discuss whether to recognise or sanction the group.
Beijing, which has seized on the images of violence from the evacuation to criticise the US for its engagement in Afghanistan, has kept open its embassy in Kabul and sought to maintain friendly relations with the Taliban.
AP reports that foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters: “The international community should encourage and promote the development of the situation in Afghanistan in a positive direction, support peaceful reconstruction, improve the wellbeing of the people and enhance its capacity for independent development.
“Imposing sanctions and pressure at every turn cannot solve the problem and will only be counterproductive.”
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has said that the EU will increase its humanitarian aid for Afghans from 50 million to over 200 million euros.
Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen)
At today’s @G7 Leaders call, I will announce an increase in the humanitarian support for Afghans, in and around the country, from #EU budget from over €50m to over €200m.
This humanitarian aid will come on top of Member States’ contributions to help the people of Afghanistan.
“This humanitarian aid will come on top of member states’ contributions to help the people of Afghanistan,” Ursula von der Leyen said, adding that she would announce the additional support at a G7 summit later in the day.
Reuters reports that an EU official said that the aid will be conditional on the respect of human and women’s rights. They said this would determine how much money would enter Afghanistan directly or into neighbouring regions.
The United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, has said that she had received credible reports of the Taliban committing serious violations, including summary executions of civilians.
Bachelet urged the UN Human Rights Council, holding an emergency session at the request of Pakistan and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), to set up a mechanism to closely monitor Taliban actions, according to Reuters.
She said there had also been reports of severe restrictions on women. “A fundamental red line will be the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls,” she told the Geneva forum.
Prominent Afghan women’s rights activist Zarifa Ghafari has arrived in Germany with her family.
Ghafari reached Cologne/Bonn airport late on Monday after fleeing Afghanistan to Pakistan last week, the AP news agency reports.
In 2018, Ghafari became the mayor of the Afghan town of Maidan Shahr at the age of 26 and has survived at least six assassination attempts.
The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has said the UK trying to secure the airport after the US withdrawal is not a solution.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It’s not about effectively whether I could fly in thousands of troops and secure the airport. Yes, I could do that, I could probably secure the airport for a few months, or maybe a year or two.
“But for what purpose? For them to be shot at, attacked, people not to get to the airport and to trigger just a permanent fight? I don’t think that is a solution.”
Norway’s foreign minister, Ine Eriksen Søreide, has called for the withdrawal deadline to be extended beyond 31 August, adding that Norway will continue evacuations as long as Kabul airport remains open.
“One of the main concerns is that the airport will be closed,” Eriksen Søreide told Norwegian broadcaster TV2 on Tuesday morning. “The civilian part is closed now, so we are completely dependent on the US military operation being maintained in order to be able to evacuate.”
She said there was “no guarantee” all Norwegian citizens would be evacuated – words which were echoed by the Swedish foreign minister Ann Linde.
Eriksen Søreide’s comments came as a plane with 157 people who had been evacuated from Afghanistan landed in Oslo. Norway has so far evacuated 374 people from Afghanistan.
In the UK, Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, who served in Afghanistan, has said extending the 31 August deadline would depend on Taliban cooperation as well as a US agreement.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: “I support the prime minister completely on this, but let’s recognise what we’re asking – we’re not just asking the Americans, although clearly they’ll have a major role, we’re actually asking the Taliban, and that’s a really difficult thing, because bluntly, they’re not exactly trustworthy.”
Tugendhat said the government could ask the US to stand with them, adding that if the Americans decide not to the UK won’t be able to secure the airfield. He said that many families are struggling to get through the gate and “a day, maybe two days longer, would help just a few more”.
Hundreds of Afghan refugees living in Indonesia, mostly members of the Hazara ethnic minority, held a rally on Tuesday calling for resettlement in third countries following the Taliban’s lightning power grab.
Around half of the 13,400 refugees living in Indonesia are Afghans, according to UN figures from April. Indonesia is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention of 1951 and its 1967 Protocol, and doesn’t allow asylum seekers to work or have access to public services.
The Associated Press reports that protesters gathered outside the UN refugee agency’s office Jakarta, with many saying they’re terrified for their families back home.
Banners at the rally read “Afghanistan is not safe” and “Resettle Afghan refugees from Indonesia”.
The UK shadow foreign secretary, Lisa Nandy, has called on Boris Johnson to “step up” and for world leaders to agree to a withdrawal plan as the 31 August deadline looms.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Nandy said there is not much more soldiers and other staff on the ground can do, but said there is “certainly” more that the politicians can do to support them.
She told BBC Breakfast: “They need help sorting through those cases, they need politicians to step up, most of all today, and agree a plan about how we’re going to get people out, extend the airbridge, but also support to those countries in the region like Pakistan who are seeing huge numbers of people crossing the border at the moment.
“To keep those borders open we need the world’s wealthiest countries to step up and say, ‘We will support you, this will not be your problem alone when this refugee crisis is over’.”
She called on Boris Johnson to “step up after years of cutting aid, of stepping back from the world, of trashing our alliances”.
The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has said it is “unlikely” the evacuation of Kabul will be extended beyond the 31 August deadline.
He told Sky News: “I think it is unlikely. Not only because of what the Taliban has said but if you look at the public statements of President Biden I think it is unlikely. It is definitely worth us all trying, and we will.”
Wallace said around 8,600 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan in last two weeks, including 2,000 people in the last 24 hours, though he conceded that “we’re not going to get everybody out”.
Amrullah Saleh, the vice president of Afghanistan’s fallen government, has said the country rejects dictatorship.
Speaking to India TV, Saleh said Afghanistan rejected “power by force”.
He said: “Don’t want Afghanistan to become Talibanistan, that will not happen, that is what the Taliban want. We prefer negotiations, but it should be meaningful. We reject of the emirate of the Taliban, we reject dictatorship, and we reject power by force.
“We are not seeking positions, personal favours, but we want the Afghan people to have a chance to determine the character of their state. We don’t want the individual identities of the Afghan people to be shattered.”
Hello, I’ll be updating the blog for the next few hours as the G7 prepare to meet to discuss providing a united position on the Taliban. Joe Biden is also expected to decide within the next 24 hours whether to extend the 31 August withdrawal deadline – a time limit the Taliban have said is a red line.
The G7 meeting over video conference will begin at 3:30pm BST, before a press conference at 5pm by Presidents Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen.
As always, please feel free to flag any important developments not included via Twitter. Thank you.
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. Thanks for following along – and stay tuned for the latest with my colleague Clea Skopeliti.
The G7 is due to meet today. When the leaders last met two months ago, they put Afghanistan as number 57 out of 70 points in their final 25-page communique – behind Ukraine, Belarus and Ethiopia, AP reports.
Afghanistan didn’t even feature in the one-and-a-half page summary of the document. NATO had already signed off on the US withdrawal and all that appeared to be left was the completion of an orderly withdrawal and hopes for a peace deal between the Afghan government and Taliban.
‘We call on all Afghan parties to reduce violence and agree on steps that enable the successful implementation of a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire and to engage fully with the peace process. In Afghanistan, a sustainable, inclusive political settlement is the only way to achieve a just and durable peace that benefits all Afghans,’ the leaders said, without a hint of urgency.
‘We are determined to maintain our support for the Afghan government to address the country’s urgent security and humanitarian needs, and to help the people of Afghanistan, including women, young people and minority groups, as they seek to preserve hard-won rights and freedoms,’ they said.
California Democrat Rep Adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee, told reporters after a committee briefing Monday on the Afghanistan withdrawal “it was hard for me to imagine” wrapping up the airlifts by the end of the month.
He also said it was clear “there were any number of warnings” to the administration “of a very rapid takeover” by the Taliban.
After more than a week of evacuations plagued by major obstacles, including Taliban forces and crushing crowds that are making approaching the airport difficult and dangerous, the number of people flown out met – and exceeded – US projections for the first time, AP reports. The count was more than twice the 3,900 flown out in the previous 24 hours on US military planes.
Army General Stephen Lyons, head of US Transportation Command, which manages the military aircraft that are executing the Kabul airlift, told a Pentagon news conference that more than 200 planes are involved, including aerial refuelling planes, and that arriving planes are spending less than an hour on the tarmac at Kabul before loading and taking off. He said the nonstop mission is taking a toll on aircrews.
“They’re tired,” Lyons said of the crews. “They’re probably exhausted in some cases.”
The US military pulled off its biggest day of evacuation flights out of Afghanistan by far on Monday, but deadly violence that has blocked many desperate evacuees from entering Kabul’s airport persisted, and the Taliban signalled they might soon seek to shut down the airlifts.
AP: Twenty-eight US military flights ferried about 10,400 people to safety out of Taliban-held Afghanistan over 24 hours that ended early Monday morning, and 15 C-17 flights over the next 12 hours brought out another 6,660, White House officials said.
The chief Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby, said the faster pace of evacuation was due in part to coordination with Taliban commanders on getting evacuees into the airport.
“Thus far, and going forward, it does require constant coordination and deconfliction with the Taliban,” Kirby said.
“What we’ve seen is, this deconfliction has worked well in terms of allowing access and flow as well as reducing the overall size of the crowds just outside the airport.”
With access still difficult, the US military went beyond the airport to carry out another helicopter retrieval of Americans. US officials said a military helicopter picked up 16 American citizens Monday and brought them onto the airfield for evacuation.
This was at least the second such rescue mission beyond the airport; Kirby said that last Thursday, three Army helicopters picked up 169 Americans near a hotel just beyond the airport gate and flew them onto the airfield.
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- US President Joe Biden is expected to decide within 24 hours whether to extend the 31 August Afghanistan withdrawal deadline in order to give the Pentagon time to prepare, an administration official told Reuters on Monday.
- The Taliban warned Monday there would be “consequences” if the United States and its allies try to remain in Afghanistan beyond next week, as Washington ramped up its efforts to evacuate tens of thousands of people desperate to flee.
- Leaders of the G7 advanced economies are expected to pledge unity on whether or not to officially recognise or sanction the Taliban when they meet virtually to discuss Afghanistan on Tuesday, according to two diplomatic sources. Recognition is a political act taken by sovereign states with important consequences, including allowing the Taliban access to the foreign aid relied upon by previous Afghan governments. The tool of recognition is “one of the most important remaining pieces of leverage that we have,” Annie Pforzheimer, a retired US diplomat who served as the deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Kabul from 2017 to 2018 told Reuters.
- Australia’s home affairs minister said “the situation is deteriorating hour by hour”. Australia has evacuated another 650 people from Afghanistan in its biggest night of a dangerous rescue mission. Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said the situation at the gates of Kabul’s airport was diabolical. “We know that the situation is deteriorating hour by hour, day by day,” Ms Andrews told the ABC.
- More than 4,226 Afghans, including embassy staff and their families, have been evacuated as part of “Operation Pitting”, the UK’s military evacuation. The UK has so far evacuated 7,109 people out of Kabul. UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said earlier this evening that Britain’s effort to evacuate people by air from Kabul is “down to hours now, not weeks”.
- Afghanistan could start to run out of food as early as September without urgent aid funding, UN agencies have warned.
- More than 500 tonnes of medical supplies including surgical equipment and severe malnutrition kits due to be delivered to Afghanistan this week are stuck because of Kabul airport restrictions, the World Health Organization said on Monday.
- A US Pentagon spokesperson said that over the past 24 hours, 16,000 people were flown out on 89 planes – a combination of military transport and commercial charters. The US military alone was responsible for flying out just under 11,000 people.
- Germany is looking at options for keeping Kabul airport running to allow for evacuations beyond the US’s self-imposed deadline of 31 August for withdrawal of its presence in Afghanistan.
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