Biden administration officials leave abroad after US Afghan withdrawal

200 US citizens and thousands of Afghans who have worked for the US military over the past 20 years remained in the country when the last US troops left after an emergency evacuation following the collapse of the US-backed Afghan government last week, leaving chaos and confusion. was marked with. .

The State Department and the White House have said they would continue to help Americans and others leave Afghanistan, but did not say how people would be able to leave the country.

“There are a lot of increasingly complex issues to resolve and coordinate. We are working through them as quickly and systematically as possible,” State Department Secretary Antony Blinken said Friday at the State Department.

Mr Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are due on separate visits on Sunday to meet with local officials, express gratitude to the US for helping with the evacuation and discuss ways to help others leave Afghanistan. The US and its allies evacuated more than 124,000 people from Afghanistan in a combination of military, commercial and charter flights in the final weeks of the mission.

Messrs. Blinken and Austin are both about to begin their visits in Doha, Qatar, the site of a US diplomatic and consular office serving Afghanistan since the closure of the US embassy, ​​as well as diplomatic exchanges with the Taliban in recent years. place is provided. .

Biden administration officials are not expected to meet with Taliban officials while in Doha. “We are not at that stage,” a State Department official said. Mr Blinken’s predecessor as secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, met with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar in Doha last year to work out a Trump administration agreement to allow US forces to leave Afghanistan. .

Officials said Mr Blinken is also expected to travel to Germany, while Austin will travel to Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Kuwait and Bahrain, like Qatar and others, assisted in the US airlift by temporarily housing thousands of Americans, third country citizens and Afghans.

“The visit of the Biden administration will underline our deepest gratitude for our enduring partnership with these countries, as well as their support for our ongoing efforts on Afghanistan,” another State Department official said on Friday.

The foreign trips come after a series of recent phone calls by Biden administration officials to aides. Mr Blinken and administration officials, including Veterans Affairs Secretary Dennis McDonough, met with military-veteran groups on Friday to thank them for their efforts to help Afghans and discuss other aspects of the US withdrawal .

Mr. Blinken also met with US diplomats and other officials, holding two town-hall meetings on Friday, one with members of the US Embassy staff in Kabul and another, wider gathering with department officials, with people familiar with the meetings. According.

According to people familiar, the meetings had emotional colours, with some participants urging department leaders not to forget Afghan visa applicants and their families living in Afghanistan.

A State Department official said last week that more than half of Afghan visa applicants working with US forces were left behind in evacuation.

Ross Wilson, the acting US ambassador to Kabul, virtually joined Mr Blinken in a short session on Friday. Mr Wilson thanked embassy staff for their efforts in the final weeks of the US presence in Afghanistan, and urged staff to use the department’s resources to address any trauma or discomfort, according to people familiar with the meeting. did.

While in Germany this week, Mr Blinken is expected to meet German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and attend a virtual gathering with officials from other countries on Afghanistan.

Mr. Austin’s visit to the Middle East will be his first since the Taliban broke into Afghanistan and regained control of the country, culminating with the August 15 fall of Kabul.

During the visit, Mr Austin will meet with Marines working with 13 soldiers killed and 20 wounded during a suicide bombing at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 26, defense officials said. The bombing in Afghanistan was the deadliest for the US military in a decade.

This story has been published without modification to the text from a wire agency feed