Blinken: Qatar will manage US interests in Afghanistan

MENA

Published: 2021-11-12 18:57

Last Updated: 2024-03-28 00:24


Blinken: Qatar will manage US interests in Afghanistan
Blinken: Qatar will manage US interests in Afghanistan

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced Friday that Qatar will take over the management of US interests in Afghanistan after Washington closed its embassy in the wake of the Taliban takeover.

Blinken said when receiving his Qatari counterpart, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Washington, that he would sign an agreement that "consolidates Qatar's role as a protective force for the (interests) of the United States in Afghanistan," where the Gulf state will establish a section to look after American interests in its embassy in Kabul.

"Let me reiterate my gratitude for your leadership and support in Afghanistan, and I note that our partnership is much broader than that," Blinken told the Qatari foreign minister.

Qatar, which hosts a major US military base, has played a key role in diplomacy and evacuations as the United States brings the curtain down on its 20-year military presence in Afghanistan.

About half of the Westerners and Western-allied Afghans who were evacuated with the American withdrawal, totaling 124,000, passed through Qatar.

Earlier, the Qataris hosted the negotiations between Washington and the Taliban that led to the February 2020 agreement, which provided for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, the United States has moved the operations of its embassy in Kabul to Qatar.

Washington closed its embassy in Kabul, which was among the world's largest, in August after it became clear that the former Western-backed Afghan government was on the verge of collapse, with diplomats destroying sensitive materials and taking down the flag.

Despite the extremist Taliban’s rule between 1996 and 2001 and the movement’s years-long war against Washington, US officials have expressed cautious optimism about the possibility of dealing with the Taliban, noting that its elements are generally implementing their pledges to allow people to leave the country.

But the United States ruled out any immediate recognition of the movement's regime or the reopening of its embassy in Kabul, indicating that it preferred to wait to see if the Taliban would honor its commitments on other issues, including the way it deals with women and preventing al-Qaeda from establishing its operations in Afghanistan.