A technical team has been able to reopen Kabul airport to receive aid and it would be prepared for civilian flights soon, according to Qatar’s ambassador to Afghanistan.
The runway at the Kabul airport has been repaired in cooperation with authorities in Afghanistan, the ambassador added on Saturday.The United States Congress is expected to finance the United Nations’ humanitarian work in Afghanistan but is unlikely to directly fund a new Taliban-led government, according to US officials, as the world body prepares to discuss aid for the war-torn country.
UN chief Antonio Guterres is travelling to Geneva to convene a high-level conference on aid for Afghanistan on September 13.
The Taliban has yet to form a government, but there have been reports that an announcement is imminent.
Meanwhile, fighting continues between the Taliban and resistance fighters in Panjshir Valley north of Kabul, raising fears of more civilians being displaced. The Panjshir Valley is the last province in Afghanistan holding out against the Taliban.
Mullah Baradar promises ‘inclusive’ government
Senior Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar has told Al Jazeera the group is in the process of forming an inclusive government.
“I assure the people that we strive to improve their living conditions, and that the government will be responsible to everyone and will provide security because it is necessary for economic development, not just in Afghanistan but in the whole world,” he said, adding that security was necessary to kick-start major economic projects in the country.
“If we are able to provide security, we will overcome other problems, and from here the wheel of progress and advancement will begin,” he said.A Taliban official said more work needs to be done before the Kabul airport is fully operational again.
“The airport was destroyed by the Americans,” said Sibghatullah Waseel, of the Taliban Information Committee.
“They burned down every part of it, therefore we needed time to repair it. But we predict that within a few days, international fights will be in progress.”
Airport security crucial for resumption of flights
Aviation experts say international airlines are unlikely to resume flights to Kabul until airport security is guaranteed.
“It’s going to take a lot of convincing and reassuring to have a foreign airline fly not just over Afghanistan – because overflight is off-limits now too – but to Afghanistan,” analyst Alex Macheras told Al Jazeera.
“We are talking about aircraft that are insured by third-party companies which are going to say, ‘no airline, you are not able to take this aircraft there because we can’t guarantee that it will get out in the state we require and so on’.”
US tally misses hundreds left in Afghanistan
Veteran-led rescue groups say the Biden administration’s estimate that no more than 200 US citizens were left behind in Afghanistan is too low and also overlooks hundreds of other people they consider to be equally American: permanent legal residents with green cards.
For green card holders, they have lived in the US for years, paid taxes, became part of their communities and often have children who are US citizens. Yet the administration says it does not have an estimate on the number of such permanent residents who are in Afghanistan and desperately trying to escape Taliban rule.
“The fear is that nobody is looking for them,” said Howard Shen, spokesman for the Cajon Valley Union School District in the San Diego area that is in contact with one such family who says they cannot get out.
“They are thousands of miles away under an oppressive regime and we’re leaving them behind,” he said. “That’s not right.”
Afghanistan could be catalyst for common EU migration policy – Commissioner
Events in Afghanistan could be a catalyst for the European Union to forge a common migration policy, European Commissioner Margaritis Schinas has said in a newspaper interview.
“It is true that we are now in a major crisis, but the EU did not cause the situation, yet we are once again called upon to be part of a solution,” the Greek commissioner, whose brief includes migration policy, told Austrian daily Wiener Zeitung.
While not seeing a migration crisis, he said he wanted to “avoid a reflex that takes us back to the crisis year 2015 before it is even clear how the situation will develop”.
“Therefore, I see now as the moment to agree on a common European migration and asylum policy, as we proposed in the EU Commission in September,” he said.
A march by Afghan women demanding equal rights from their country’s new rulers has been brought to an end by Taliban special forces.
The demonstration – which was the second of its kind in two days in Kabul – ended abruptly after the fighters fired their weapons into the air.
Protesters chanted slogans including “You don’t have legitimacy without women’s rights,” aimed at the Taliban government.