Blinken

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
April 14, 2021

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says it is time for the United States and its NATO allies to withdraw from Afghanistan as U.S. President Joe Biden prepares to announce the withdrawal of U.S. troops by September 11 — 20 years to the day after the Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States.

“We will work very closely together in the weeks and months ahead on a safe, deliberate and coordinated withdrawal of our forces,” Blinken said in a televised statement at NATO headquarters in Brussels on April 14 ahead of a video conference with the military alliance’s foreign and defence ministers.

Some 7,000 non-U.S. troops from mainly NATO countries, as well as Australia, New Zealand and Georgia, outnumbering the 2,500 American soldiers in Afghanistan but still relying on U.S. air support, planning and leadership for their training mission.

“Together, we have achieved the goals that we set out to achieve and now it is time to bring our forces home,” said Blinken, who was accompanied in the Belgian capital by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Biden’s expected announcement would mean a delay by about five months of a U.S. pledge to withdraw by May 1, a deadline agreed with the Taliban under former President Donald Trump.

The militant group on April 14 reiterated its call for the withdrawal of all foreign forces by the date stipulated in the U.S.-Taliban agreement signed in February 2020.

A senior U.S. official who briefed reporters on April 13 about Biden’s decision on the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan said the withdrawal would begin before May 1 and could be complete well before the September 11 deadline.

The withdrawal will not be subject to further conditions, including security or human rights, the official said.

“The president has judged that a conditions-based approach, which has been the approach of the past two decades, is a recipe in staying in Afghanistan forever,” according to the official. The United States will instead focus its efforts on supporting the ongoing peace process, the official added.

German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said it was now important “for us in NATO to synchronize our planning with U.S. planning.”

“We always said: we’ll go in together, we’ll leave together,” she told ARD public television. “I am for an orderly withdrawal and that is why I assume that we (NATO) will agree to that today.”

It remains unclear how the move would impact a planned summit scheduled to begin April 24 in Istanbul seeking to revive intra-Afghan peace talks in Doha, Qatar.

An unidentified Afghan government peace negotiator expressed disappointment at the unconditional withdrawal of U.S. troops.

“It is the most irresponsible, selfish thing the U.S. could do to its Afghan partners,” dpa quoted the negotiator as saying, adding: “They could have ended this in a responsible way, with a little more patience.”

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid warned: “If the agreement [with the United States] is breached and foreign forces fail to exit the country on the specified date, problems will certainly be compounded and those who failed to comply with the agreement will be held responsible.”

Another Taliban spokesman, Muhammad Naeem, said on April 13 the group would not take part in any summits that would make decisions about Afghanistan until all international troops “completely withdraw from our homeland.”

The agreement between the Trump administration and the Taliban called for the Taliban to halt attacks and hold peace talks with the Afghan government in exchange for a U.S. commitment to a complete withdrawal by May 2021.

Biden said last month that the withdrawal deadline would be difficult to meet due to logistical challenges, while the Taliban warned of “consequences” if it reneged on the May 1 deadline.

U.S. commanders have said that the Taliban has failed to meet the conditions of the peace agreement by continuing attacks on Afghan security forces and civilians and failing to totally cut ties with Al-Qaeda and other extremist groups.

Biden’s decision comes after a review of the February 2020 agreement and amid a growing consensus in Washington that little more can be achieved in the country. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican-Kentucky) accused Biden of abandoning the fight.

“Precipitously withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan is a grave mistake,” McConnell said, adding that effective counterterrorism operations require presence and partners on the ground.

The United States has tried before to withdraw from Afghanistan, but concerns about Afghan security forces, corruption, and the resiliency of the Taliban have hampered the plans.

A U.S. withdrawal by September 11 would coincide with the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people. After the attacks, the United States led an invasion of Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban regime for harboring Al-Qaeda, the terrorist group behind the 9/11 attacks.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, AFP, and dpa

Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036

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