NATO allies will leave Afghanistan with the United States

First amendment: 04/14/2021 – 21:08

After the Biden administration announced that the United States would permanently leave Afghanistan on September 11th, German Defense Minister Angret Kramp-Karenbauer announced that her country would “coordinate” the withdrawal with the withdrawal of the Americans. After the announcement, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken confirmed at NATO headquarters that they were negotiating a joint exit for all allies.

The agreement signed between the US administration under Donald Trump and the Taliban included the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan by May 1 of this year. However, the new Biden administration hopes to implement an unconditional and unconditional withdrawal that must end before 9/11.

This Wednesday, April 14th, German Defense Minister Angret Kramp-Karenbauer confirmed that her country will “coordinate” with the United States to withdraw its forces from Afghan territory. He declared, “We have always said that: we go in together and go out together. I support an orderly withdrawal and I assume we will decide that today.”

The decision alluded to by the German minister will emerge from the meeting held at NATO headquarters between the mission’s allies. There, in Brussels, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said he is “here to work closely with our allies, with the Secretary-General (of NATO), according to the principle we have laid out from the start: coming in together, adapting together and hanging out together.”

File photo: Soldiers of the 2nd Platoon, B-2 Platoon 8-8 Battery Field Artillery fire a howitzer artillery piece at the Spruan Ghar Front Firing Base in Panjway, Kandahar Province, southern Afghanistan on June 12, 2011. © Buzz Ratner / Reuters

In Afghanistan, besides the 2,500 American soldiers still on the ground, there are another 7,000 soldiers from countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand or Georgia, among others. The number of non-US forces reached 40,000 in 2008.

“Time to end America’s longest war”

President Joe Biden is due to appear in front of the media on Wednesday from the “treaty room” of the White House, the same room in which George W. Bush announced the 2001 military offensive.

Excerpts from his team’s speech include a statement by Biden declaring that he is the fourth president of the United States “to rule over the presence of American forces in Afghanistan. Two Republicans and two Democrats.” “I will not transfer this responsibility to a fifth person,” he says.

“We went to Afghanistan to launch a horrific attack that happened 20 years ago. That doesn’t explain why we should continue there in 2021.” The Democratic president will argue, “It is time to end the longest war in the United States. It is time for American forces to come home.”

Joe Biden announced the final withdrawal of troops on September 11, 2021, just as the reason for the start of the war in Afghanistan is 20 years old. © Massoud Hosseini / Agence France-Presse

However, this announcement does not like the Taliban movement, which on Wednesday threatened to boycott the peace negotiations, because it considers that this withdrawal plan violates what was signed with the previous administration.

“We will follow the practical steps of the Americans, and if they violate the agreement and do not withdraw before May 1, we will undoubtedly have to take military action to work for the freedom of our country,” the spokesman said. He said on Twitter … the rebel Muhammad Naim Wardak.

He stressed that “until all foreign forces completely withdraw from our homeland, the Islamic Emirate (as the Taliban calls itself) will not participate in any conference that takes decisions on Afghanistan.”

Two weeks remain to meet the agreed deadline and to know whether the Taliban will comply with its threats in the event that the conflicting parties fail to reach a previous agreement.

With Reuters and EFE.