Status: 08/25/2021 6:53 p.m.
The Bundeswehr is still flying Germans and vulnerable Afghans from Kabul. This will probably no longer be possible from Friday. However, the Taliban have promised that Afghans will also be able to leave the country on civil flights in the future.
In the negotiations with the German government, the Taliban promised that Afghans would be allowed to leave the country after the US troop withdrawal planned for August 31. This was tweeted by the German negotiator Markus Potzel after talks with the deputy head of the Taliban’s political office in Qatar, Shir Mohammed Abbas Staneksai.
He had assured him that Afghans with valid identification documents will still have the opportunity to travel on commercial flights after August 31. The withdrawal of the US troops also means an end to the evacuation flights of the German armed forces.
Taliban spokesman: departure with legal documents
Potzel is negotiating with the Taliban how things can go after the US withdrawal. The federal government wants to continue to bring German citizens and vulnerable Afghans out of the country by civilian flights from Kabul. It’s about several thousand people.
Referring to the meeting with Potzel, the spokesman for the Taliban’s political office in Doha, Suhail Shahin, wrote on Twitter that the timely withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan paves the way for the resumption of civil flights. People with legitimate documents could travel on commercial flights after August 31st.
Bundeswehr mission will probably end well before Tuesday
August 31st is the Tuesday of next week. Then the United States will withdraw its last troops from Afghanistan, without which, according to the German government, deployment of the Bundeswehr is no longer possible.
The Bundeswehr will probably end its evacuation mission well before Tuesday – it is not yet officially known when exactly. Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her government statement in the morning that the rescue flights would end “in a few days”. The government will endeavor to get people out of Afghanistan afterwards.
Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said in the afternoon that it was not yet possible to give an exact time. This is also dependent on the security situation. According to information from ARD and other media from security circles, the Bundeswehr mission could end on Friday. It is likely that the last Bundeswehr machine will take off in Kabul on Thursday and land in Germany on Friday after a stopover in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
200 Germans left in Kabul
The Bundestag approved the ongoing deployment of the Bundeswehr with up to 600 soldiers in the afternoon and thus subsequently created the legal basis for the mission. By Wednesday afternoon, the Bundeswehr flew around 5,000 people – more than 500 German citizens, but mostly Afghans in need of protection. In addition to former government officials and members of the security forces, human rights activists and local forces who have worked for foreign forces such as the German armed forces fear acts of revenge by the Taliban.
According to the Federal Foreign Office, there are currently more than 200 German citizens in Kabul.