KABUL: Two hundred foreigners in Afghanistan, Americans among them, are set to depart on charter flights from Kabul on Thursday after the new Taliban government agreed to their evacuation, a US official said.
The departures will be among the first international flights to take off from Kabul airport since the militia seized the capital in mid-August, triggering the chaotic US-led evacuation of 124,000 foreigners and at-risk Afghans.
The flights come two days after the Taliban announced an interim government made up of mainly ethnic Pashtun men, including hardliners and some wanted by the United States on terrorism charges, dashing international hopes for a more moderate administration.
The Taliban were pressed to allow the departures by US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad, the US official said.
The official could not say whether the American civilians and other foreign nationals were among people stranded for days in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif because their private charters had not been allowed to depart.
A Qatari official, speaking on the Kabul airport tarmac on Thursday, said it was about 90% ready for operations but would reopen gradually.
Reopening the airport has been a high priority for the Taliban following the collapse of the Western-backed government and their seizure of Kabul. It has been closed since the massive US-led airlift ended and foreign forces finally withdrew.
Qatari special envoy Mutlaq bin Majed al Qahtani described a flight out of Kabul on Thursday as a regular flight and not an evacuation. There would also be a flight on Friday, he said.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that as of Wednesday about 100 US citizens were still in Afghanistan but that not all necessarily wanted to leave now. Some may have family in the country or other reasons for not departing yet, she said.
PASHTUN DOMINANCE
The announcement of a new government on Tuesday was seen as a signal the Taliban would not try to broaden their base and show a more tolerant face, as they had suggested they would do.
All of the ministers are men, and nearly all Pashtuns, the ethnic group that predominates in the Taliban’s southern Afghan heartland but accounts for under half the country’s population.
Foreign countries greeted the interim government with caution and dismay on Wednesday. In Kabul, dozens of women took to the streets in protest and several journalists covering the demonstration said Taliban fighters detained and beat them.
Protests by both women and men were being curtailed because there was a security threat from IS fighters, said a Taliban minister who declined to be identified. Any attack on journalists would be investigated, he said.
Many critics called on the leadership to respect basic human rights and revive the economy, which faces collapse amid steep inflation, food shortages and the prospect of foreign aid being slashed as countries seek to isolate the Taliban.
The Taliban government wanted to engage with regional and Western governments and work with international aid organisations, the Taliban minister said.
But White House spokeswoman Psaki said no one in the Biden administration “would suggest that the Taliban are respected and valued members of the global community”.
The European Union said it was ready to continue emergency humanitarian assistance, but longer-term development aid would depend on the Taliban upholding basic freedoms. — Reuters
