Afghanistan: Angela Merkel advocates dialogue with the Taliban

AFP edited by Europe 1 5:59 p.m., September 05, 2021

"We just need to talk with the Taliban about how we can get the people who worked for Germany out of the country and bring them to safety," Angela Merkel said at a press conference in North Rhine-Westphalia. -North Westphalia.

"They are the ones we need to talk to now. In particular, we need to bring out the people who have worked for German development organizations and feel threatened," she added.

The Taliban expected at the turn by the international community

The gigantic airlift set up by the West on August 14, on the eve of the capture of Kabul by the Taliban, ended on August 30 without being able to evacuate all the Afghans who said they were threatened and wished to leave the country.

Returning to power twenty years after being ousted by a coalition led by the United States, the Taliban are expected at the turn by the international community, which has warned that it would judge the Islamist movement on its actions.

Earlier Sunday, the main spokesman of the Taliban Zabihullah Mujahid had told the newspaper Welt am Sonntag that the movement wanted to have "solid and official diplomatic relations with Germany".

"We always said we would stay if the Americans stayed"

In the aftermath of the capture of Kabul by the Taliban, Angela Merkel criticized the United States' decision to withdraw Western troops. "There was a domino effect after the withdrawal of the troops," she said during a closed meeting in front of the executives of her party, the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU), according to reports. to AFP by participants. "We have always said that we would also stay if the Americans stayed," she also stressed before acknowledging that the United States had paid a "heavy price" in human terms for twenty years in Afghanistan.