Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Monday that the Taliban must end their occupation of Afghanistan, emphasising that they are taking the wrong approach.
“The Taliban should stop occupying their brothers’ land,” Erdoğan said in a press conference before departing for Northern Cyprus.
Insurgents took advantage of the final stages of U.S. and other foreign troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan to launch a series of lightning offensives across the country.
The group is thought to now control roughly half of the country’s 400 districts, as well as several key border crossings and a string of important provincial capitals.
Following an invasion launched in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, a US-led military coalition has been on the ground in Afghanistan for nearly two decades.
Fears are growing that without vital coalition air support, Afghan forces will be overwhelmed, allowing for a complete Taliban military takeover or the start of a multisided civil war in a country awash in weapons after nearly four decades of fighting.
Erdoğan went on to say that Turkey intends to talk to the Taliban about the Kabul airport.
Turkey has offered to guard the airport, despite questions about how security will be ensured along major transportation routes and at the airport, which is the main gateway to the capital Kabul. As Western forces withdraw from Afghanistan, the airport’s security is critical for the operation of diplomatic missions.
The airport is in a strategic location in Kabul, close to the Afghan presidential palace and foreign diplomatic missions, and it is the only place from which diplomats can be evacuated in an emergency.
Given that “uninterrupted, safe operation of the airport is indispensable for the continued presence of diplomatic missions in Afghanistan,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry has called for a fair burden-sharing arrangement.
Following a series of meetings with NATO leaders on the sidelines of the June summit, Erdoğan stated that Turkey was seeking Pakistani and Hungarian participation in the mission in Afghanistan after the US-led NATO force left.
The Taliban, on the other hand, are opposed to Ankara’s proposal, claiming that Turkey should also withdraw its troops in accordance with the 2020 agreement.
The Chenab Times News Desk