At a news conference in Qatar on Tuesday, Blinken said the Taliban had assured the U.S. that all U.S. and Afghan citizens with valid travel documents could leave an airport in northern Afghanistan, despite claims by the U.S. Republicans that the militant group refuses to take off the planes.
Blinken spoke after Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Sunday that he has received news reports that “hundreds” of U.S. citizens and Afghan allies are trapped at the airport. Mazar-i-Sharif, in Afghanistan.
The Taliban “do not clean up the planes to leave,” McCaul told Fox News, saying that “this is becoming a hostage situation in which they will not allow American citizens to leave until they get full recognition of the United States “.
Blinken explained that a problem had arisen at the airport with people who did not have valid documents.
“There are groups of people grouping together. Some have the proper travel documents and American passport, a green card, a visa and some don’t,” Blinken said. “And I understand that the Taliban have not denied access to anyone who has a valid document, but they have said that those who do not have valid documents, at this time, cannot leave.”
The State Department told Congress Saturday that charter flights were on the ground in Mazar-i-Sharif, but were allowed to land in Doha. The message said it was the Taliban’s decision to settle the flights.
Marina LeGree, whose organization is trying to take 34 women at risk from Afghanistan on those flights, told CNN Tuesday that the planes were still on the ground.
He told CNN that the Taliban have said they will be allowed to leave those who have visas, but those who cannot will not be able to leave Afghanistan.
LeGree, who runs a nonprofit called Ascend, said women in her group do not have visas and that this was not a problem when the U.S. government declared the flights. LeGree told CNN that she was discouraged by Blinken’s statements and felt as if the State Department was handing them over to the Taliban.
It is unclear why the passports were destroyed, but it is possible that diplomats determined that it would have been dangerous for the documents to fall into the hands of Taliban militants who could attack these Afghans. But not having a passport creates major complications for Afghans who are still trying, desperately and urgently, to leave the country.
Blinken’s trip to Qatar, where he arrived Monday and Tuesday accompanied by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, is part of a larger “thank you” tour that will include Germany. Both countries were key to the U.S. effort to execute the largest airlift in U.S. military history, which took some 125,000 people out of Kabul, and both countries hosted intense diplomacy over Afghanistan. .
Qatar has become a center of diplomatic efforts, with the country mediating between the US, its allies and the Taliban. In Germany, Blinken will host a ministerial meeting on Afghanistan as the United States and its allies work to establish a unified position on Afghanistan and its focus on the Taliban as reports of violent repression of Afghanistan appear. group against protesters and the deepest fears about the treatment of women. .
The ministerial agenda will certainly include a review of the Taliban interim government, which gives key functions to veterans of the Taliban movement and its allies in the Haqqani network, which the United States has designated as a foreign terrorist network for its deadly attacks on the U.S. and coalition military and civilian personnel and their ties to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Government officials with rewards in their heads
The new prime minister will be Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, a longtime member of the Taliban and leader of the Shura council or group leader for about two decades. He is seen as an influential and respected religious figure in the movement rather than a military leader. His deputy will be Mullah Baradar, the head of the Taliban’s political office who spent eight years in prison before being released as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to hold peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar.
The caretaker government also includes two senior Haqqani network officials on the U.S. and United Nations terrorism lists. Khalil Haqqani, the acting refugee minister, was named a specially designated global terrorist in 2011 by U.S. officials who put a $ 5 million reward on him.
The leader of the Haqqani network, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who has been appointed acting interior minister, is also under terrorist designation by the US and the UN. The State Department has also put a $ 5 million reward on him.
Sirajuddin Haqqani is one of two Taliban deputy leaders since 2016. The other Taliban deputy director, Mullah Yaqoob, is the son of Taliban founder Mullah Omar and has been appointed acting Minister of Defense.
CNN’s Tim Lister, Jonny Hallam, Daniella Diaz, Jennifer Hansler, Nicky Robertson, Sonnet Swire and Lauren Fox contributed to this report