Kabul, September 7
Afghans with valid visas and passports stranded in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif and waiting to take chartered evacuation flights out of the country would be allowed to leave, a Taliban official at the city’s international airport said on Tuesday.
Mawlawi Hafiz Mansour said the majority of Afghans waiting to take one of four evacuation flights have neither valid visas nor passports. The Taliban have said only Afghans with passports and valid visas would be allowed to leave.
Mansour did not provide a breakdown of the numbers of those with valid documents and those without.
Speaking from Qatar, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also said the Taliban had given assurances of safe passage for all seeking to leave Afghanistan with proper travel documents. He said the United States would hold the Taliban to that pledge.
The US is under pressure to help the remaining Americans and green card holders leave Afghanistan, and it has promised to work with the Taliban to do that. — AP
Taliban not blocking evacuation: Blinken
Doha: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken denied on Tuesday reports that the Taliban had blocked Americans attempting to fly out of a northern Afghan city, but said the group had not allowed charter flights to depart because some people lacked valid travel documents. About 1,000 people, including Americans, have been stuck at Mazar-i-Sharif airport. Reuters
No aid, Afghanistan braces for humanitarian crisis
Kabul: After the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, international aid, which evidently constitutes and caters to all basic facilitations of the country, has been suspended, leaving the country’s healthcare facilities on the verge of a total collapse. IANS
China: Taliban’s plan on Bagram fake news
Beijing: China on Tuesday termed as “pure fake news” a report that the Taliban planned to hand over Bagram airbase vacated by the US troops to it. “I can tell you this is pure fake news,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said. PTI
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