With the deadline ticking for the joint US, UK and other countries’ troops efforts to evacuate thousands of its citizens and Afghans from Afghanistan, British armed forces minister pointed Monday that US is the key element in those efforts extension, Sky News reports.
James Heappey noted that many eligible Afghans may not be airlifted out to safety if an extension is not granted of the US troops’ August 31 deadline because, according to him, British evacuations could not have happened without the US Air Force.
UK Armed Forces and around 265 people they support will continue to take part in the evacuation of entitled personnel from Kabul airport that has brought to safety more than 1,800 from Kabul just in the past 24 hours.
He said that British mission in Kabul in the chaotic situation Kabul is in fundamentally underpinned not only by the US troops’ presence and its numbers at the airport but also on the US Air Force’s role in delivering air traffic control other airfield services, underscoring the hard reality that there would be ‘no international airlift without the way the US is underpinning it.’
Heappey noted that the extension on those efforts depends on G7 talks with US President Joe Biden but not solely on him since a conversation with the Taliban will follow after a decision is made and millitants will need to show if they’re willing to engage in international diplomacy with the international community or they will say no for an extension.
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