Afghans label troop withdrawal plan as ‘irresponsible’

Officials have slammed the planned unconditional withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and said the withdrawal should be done responsibly.

Speaking to Germany’s DPA news agency after news broke of US President Joe Biden’s expected announcement that troops will exit by September 11, one peace talks negotiator in Doha said: “It is the most irresponsible, selfish thing the United States could do to its Afghan partners.”

The peace talks team member, who asked not to be named, told DPA it might be the end of the war for Washington, but that Afghan partners will pay the price.

“They could have ended this in a responsible way, with a little more patience,” the negotiator said.

The former head of Afghanistan’s independent human rights commission Sima Samar meanwhile called the unconditional withdrawal “unfortunate.”

“The withdrawal should be conditional and responsible,” Samar said, adding that Afghans need to learn from the past, in an apparent reference to the sudden Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 which led to the devastating civil war.

US Secretary of State confirmed reports on Wednesday that Washington would withdraw all its troops.

Ahead of a meeting with his NATO counterparts, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the time has come for international forces to withdraw from Afghanistan.

“Together, we went into Afghanistan to deal with those who attacked us and to make sure that Afghanistan would not again become a haven for terrorists who might attack any of us,” Blinken said as he arrived at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday.

“Together, we have achieved the goals that we we set out to achieve. And now it is time to bring our forces home,” he said.

The German defence minister went further and said ahead of Wednesday’s meeting that all NATO countries will pull out of Afghanistan together.

The Presidential Palace (ARG) has not yet commented on the reports. The Afghan presidential palace has not reacted to the decision yet. However, a presidential advisor had previously said that they would not comment until Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had spoken to President Biden about details of the withdrawal plan.