The US has clashed with some of its closest allies over US President Joe Biden’s insistence on sticking to an Afghanistan withdrawal date of Tuesday next week that would shut down a frantic international evacuation effort from Taliban rule.
Biden, after virtual talks with G7 leaders on Tuesday, said that the US and its closest allies would “stand shoulder to shoulder” in future action over Afghanistan and the Taliban, despite disappointing them in their urgent pleas now to allow time for more airlifts.
Biden was adamant that the risk of terror attacks was too great to accede to appeals from G7 leaders to keep what are now 5,800 US troops at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul beyond the end of the month, anchoring the airlifts.
Photo: Reuters
No country would be able to evacuate all of their citizens and at-risk Afghan allies by the deadline of Tuesday next week, allied officials had said.
“We will go on right up until the last moment that we can,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who had openly lobbied to keep the airport presence beyond the deadline.
Johnson acknowledged that he was unable to sway Biden to extend the US military presence in Tuesday’s talks.
“But you’ve heard what the president of the United States has had to say, you’ve heard what the Taliban have said,” he said.
“Our immediate priority is to ensure the safe evacuation of our citizens and those Afghans who have partnered with us and assisted our efforts over the past 20 years, and to ensure continuing safe passage out of Afghanistan,” the G7 leaders said in a joint statement that did not address precisely how they would guarantee continuing safe passage without a military presence.
Going forward, the leaders said that they would “judge the Afghan parties by their actions, not words.”
China said that it has established an “open and effective communication and consultation with the Afghan Taliban,” following a meeting between representatives of the group and Beijing’s ambassador to Kabul.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) gave no details about the Tuesday meeting between Abdul Salam Hanafi, deputy head of the Taliban political office in Qatar, and Chinese Ambassador to Afghanistan Wang Yu (王愚).
Yesterday, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin exchanged views on Afghanistan in a call, the Chinese-language People’s Daily reported.
Xi urged all parties in Afghanistan to build an open and inclusive political framework, implement moderate, stable policies and cut ties with all terrorist groups, it said.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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