UK will work with Taliban if crucial, says PM Johnson

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has mentioned the UK’s diplomatic efforts to discover a resolution in Afghanistan stay ongoing, which leaves open the prospect of working with the Taliban “if necessary”.
Speaking to the media after an emergency Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (COBRA) assembly to debate the disaster within the area on Friday, Johnson mentioned “formidable” challenges stay across the evacuation of British nationals and supporters from Kabul airport however the scenario was getting “slightly better”.
“What I want to assure people is that our political and diplomatic efforts to find a solution for Afghanistan, working with the Taliban, of course if necessary, will go on and our commitment to Afghanistan is lasting,” Johnson mentioned.
“The situation is getting slightly better and we are seeing a stablisation at the airport. So yesterday [Thursday] we were able to get out about 1,000 people and today [Friday] another 1,000 people; a lot of those UK eligible persons coming back to this country and a lot of them people coming back under the Afghanistan Resettlement and Assistance Programme (ARAP) – interpreters and others to whom we owe debts of gratitude and honour,” he mentioned, including that the operation will proceed at a quick tempo.
“So the operation is becoming faster, but I’m not going to pretend that it’s easy. The logistical challenges are formidable and they are doing an outstanding job in very difficult circumstances,” he mentioned.

Johnson additionally defended his Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, who has come underneath hearth from the Opposition over a missed cellphone name together with his Afghan counterpart within the now fallen Ashraf Ghani authorities on the peak of the disaster final weekend. He mentioned he “absolutely” had full religion within the Cabinet minister, including: “I can tell you that the whole of the government has been working virtually round the clock, hitting the phones, to do what we can to sort it out; to deal with a situation that has been long in gestation and to make sure that we get as many people back as possible.”
Pressed on whether or not he believed ideas from the brand new Taliban regime in cost that it could be extra average sooner or later, Johnson mentioned that it was necessary to take “people at face value”.

“We hope they mean what they say. But again, as I said in the House of Commons, and I think that this is the position of everybody from the President of the United States, President Macron of France, [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel, everybody that I talked to – everybody is agreed that we will judge them on their actions, and that is the important thing,” he mentioned.
Since final Saturday, the UK says has evacuated 1,615 folks, together with 399 British nationals and their dependants, 320 embassy workers, and 402 Afghan nationals who labored for the UK authorities in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, the federal government has introduced 5 million kilos for native councils in England, Scotland and Wales providing to accommodate Afghans who’ve arrived underneath the ARAP programme. Under the scheme, Afghans who face threats from the Taliban having labored for the UK in Afghanistan, have been allowed to return to Britain.