Some Allies Want More Time To Complete Afghan Evacuations – NATO chief

NATO allies have deployed enough planes to airlift foreign nationals and their Afghan colleagues from Kabul but ground access to the airport is a “big challenge,” the alliance’s chief said on Friday.

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking after a video conference of NATO foreign ministers, also said that some allies were pushing for more time to complete their evacuations.

The United States — which has overall control of operations at the airport — had previously set an August 31 deadline to pull its forces out of Afghanistan.

But several other NATO countries raised the possibility of that now being pushed back, given the evacuations.

Their citizens and vulnerable Afghans who worked for international missions are still trapped in the country, which has fallen to Taliban control.

NATO itself still has 500 civilian staff, including nearly 200 Afghans, working at the airport to keep it open while national military rescue operations continue.

“The big challenge is to get people on those planes,” Stoltenberg told reporters, urging the Taliban not to prevent foreign and Afghan would-be evacuees from approaching the airport.