US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that US forces may remain in Afghanistan after the August 31 deadline to evacuate Americans, and the Pentagon added that the US military is currently unable to reach people outside the Kabul airport.
“If the citizens of the United States stay, we’ll stay until we take them all,” Biden told ABC News in an interview on the day many members of Congress pressed him to extend his deadline for the eventual withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
Biden on troop withdrawal from Afghanistan
However, Biden has made clear that his goal is to complete the evacuation by August 31, but if that does not happen, the troops will have to stay longer.
The rest of the text is below the video.
We will do everything we can to continue to try to resolve disputes and create corridors so that the Americans and their partners can get to the airport. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters at the Pentagon that we currently have no way of leaving and extending the operation to Kabul. He added that the United States expects the Taliban to allow Afghans who want to leave Afghanistan to leave Afghanistan safely.
Austin said there are approximately 4,500 US military personnel in Kabul and “there has been no hostile interaction with the Taliban and our lines of communication with Taliban leaders remain open.”
Evacuation from Afghanistan
The media is receiving more information about the difficulties in reaching the airport from which the evacuation from Afghanistan takes place. Yesterday, information appeared on the website of the US Embassy in Kabul that US forces cannot guarantee safe access to the airport of the Afghan capital, from which civilians are transported. The State Department acknowledged that the Taliban had not kept their word about allowing Afghans to freely enter Kabul airport.
Referring to the dramatic scenes from Kabul airport, Biden said his first reaction was, “We need to take back control of this.” The US President admitted that he “does not expect what will happen.”
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