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2021-08-18 Afghanistan
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Deutsche Welle live updates, Day 2: UN casts doubt on Taliban promises
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[DW] The insurgents have vowed to take a more moderate stance as they seize control of Afghanistan but both the UN and Germany have expressed skepticism. EU foreign ministers are holding emergency talks. DW has the latest.
This story was last updated at 01:55 UTC/GMT.
EVACUEES LAND IN GERMANY
Around 130 people who had been flown from Kabul to Tashkent on Tuesday arrived in the central German city of Frankfurt on a commercial Lufthansa flight early on Wednesday morning.
Further special flights put on to bring people from Afghanistan to Germany will continue to arrive from Tashkent, Doha and other stopover countries during the next few days, the airline company said.
UN REFUGEE AGENCY TO STAY IN AFGHANISTAN
The United Nations' refugee agency, UNHCR, is hoping to continue working in Afghanistan, the organization's German representative Katharina Lumpp told German newspaper Die Welt.
"We want to stay in the country because the people there need help now more than ever," she said, adding that the UNHCR currently has around 200 members of staff in the country.
Lumpp explained that the vast majority of Afghan refugees over the past 40 years have sought refuge in neighboring Iran or Pakistan. But in the past few months, most displaced Afghans have been displaced within their own country. "They now urgently need support and humanitarian aid," the UN representative said.
AUSTRIA UNWILLING TO ACCEPT REFUGEES
Austria's Interior Minister Karl Nehammer, from the ruling center-right Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) told the German newspaper Die Welt that accepting Afghan refugees following the Taliban's takeover was out of the question.
"There's no reason why an Afghan should come to Austria," he said. He called instead for neighboring countries to take in refugees, saying that "illegal migration" where migrants pass through several safe countries before their final destination "must be stopped."
The conservative lawmaker said that Austria had already taken in 35,000 people from Afghanistan, "the majority of which are young men, who often prove a challenge for the integration and social system due to their low level of education."
Efficiently sums it up. UK TO ACCEPT UP TO 20,000 REFUGEES
Anyone see any women in those airport fotos? No, me neither.
The British Home Office said on Tuesday that it is planning to accept 5,000 refugees from Afghanistan this year, rising to some 20,000 in the long term. Priority will be given to those at high risk, including women and children facing threats of persecution.
"This resettlement scheme will be kept under further review for future years, with up to a total of 20,000 in the long term," the Home Office said in a statement. It follows a similar scheme that saw the UK accept refugees from Syria from 2014.
The announcement comes before British MPs take part in an extraordinary session of parliament on Wednesday after being called back from holiday. They are set to discuss the ongoing situation in Afghanistan.
The UK was one of the biggest supporters of the US invasion of the country, deploying 9,500 troops. Some 900 British troops have now returned to Kabul to help with evacuations.
TALIBAN LEADER RETURNS TO AFGHANISTAN
Top Taliban leader and co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar arrived in the city of Kandahar, the group's spiritual home in the south of Afghanistan, on Tuesday evening.
Baradar had been in Doha as part of the Taliban's peace negotiation delegation. He is the highest-ranking official of the Islamist group who is known to have returned to Afghanistan. He is expected to take a key role in any eventual Taliban government.
A video shared on Twitter showed the leader driving through Kandahar in a convoy after arrival.
THIRD GERMAN PLANE LEAVES KABUL
A third German military transport plane has left Kabul airport with 139 people on board, Germany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told public broadcaster ZDF.
The aircraft headed to Tashkent in Uzbekistan. From there the passengers will be taken to Germany.
Another German plane was also ready and waiting at Kabul airport, according to Maas. "At the moment the gates at the airport are closed, as soon as they're open again, we will continue the operation," he said.
A tweet from the German defense ministry confirmed that so far, more than 260 people have been flown out of the country. "And we will evacuate as long as we can," it added.
MIXED REPORTS OVER TALIBAN COMPLIANCE WITH DEPARTURES
The Taliban have agreed to allow the "safe passage" of civilians hoping to join a US-directed airlift from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden's national security adviser said Tuesday.
Jake Sullivan did acknowledge reports that some civilians were "being turned away or pushed back or even beaten," as they tried to reach the Kabul international airport.
Nevertheless, he said "very large numbers" were reaching the airport and the problem of others was being taken up with the Taliban, whose swift takeover of the country on Sunday plunged the US evacuation effort into chaos.
A timetable for completing the evacuation of Americans, Afghan allies and possibly other civilians has yet to be established with the Taliban.
Taliban fighters stand guard in front of the Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, August 16, 2021.
CHAOS AT KABUL AIRPORT
Taliban fighters stand guard in front of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021. Thousands of people thronged to the airport trying to leave the country after the Taliban seized power with stunning speed.
GERMAN GOVERNMENT CRITICIZED
Angela Merkel and the German government have received a stinging rebuke from the country's Green Party over its handling of the crisis in Afghanistan.
Germany flew around 125 people out of Kabul on Tuesday afternoon but an earlier mission had just seven people on board.
And the Greens' expert for foreign affairs, Omid Nouripour, told DW that the "huge failure" to carry out an orderly evacuation showed that the German government was not as prepared for the situation in Afghanistan as it had previously assured
The MP said the government had ignored warnings since June about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. "They did not adapt to the situation. They had a lot of time," Nouripour said.
"This is a pity that they just took seven people with them, because we know that it's a question of hours until the airport maybe could be closed by the Taliban," he said.
Amid rising concern from certain sides that the Taliban takeover would trigger a migrant influx in Europe, Nouripour dismissed German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer's remarks about expecting to receive some 300,000 to 5 million asylum applications.
"This is ridiculous," Nouripour said. "We get seven people out of Kabul in just days... and he's talking about five million people."
What an arrogant idiot. RUSSIA HAS 'CONSTRUCTIVE' TALIBAN MEETING
The Russian ambassador to Afghanistan said he had a "constructive" and "positive" meeting with Taliban representatives in Kabul on Tuesday.
Ambassador Dmitry Zhirnov told Russian state television: "The Taliban representatives said the Taliban has the friendliest approach to Russia. They confirmed guarantees of security for the embassy."
Moscow's Afghanistan envoy, Zamir Kabulov, also said the Taliban has already started guarding the outside perimeter of the Russian embassy.
The Kremlin designated the Taliban a terrorist group in 2003, but has since hosted several rounds of talks in Afghanistan, most recently in March, that involved the militant organization.
Moscow, which fought a 10-year war in Afghanistan that ended with the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, has made a diplomatic comeback as a mediator, reaching out to feuding Afghan factions, as it jockeyed for position with the United States to gain leverage in the country.
EU SEEKS TALIBAN TALKS, SUSPENDS DEVELOPMENT AID
The European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Tuesday the bloc "will have to talk" to the Taliban as they "have won the war."
Nevertheless, Borrell was keen to stress this does not mean Brussels will officially recognize the Taliban as rulers of Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Borrell also said the EU would suspend payments of development assistance to the conflict-ravaged country, but Brussels is weighing up whether to boost humanitarian aid.
He said there can be "no payments of development assistance until we clarify the situation" with the Taliban.
UN CASTS DOUBT ON TALIBAN STANCE
In the wake of the Taliban's first news conference since seizing control, global skepticism has emerged over the group's new-found levels of tolerance.
The United Nations said it will need to see action, before it can believe the Taliban's words.
"We will need to see what actually happens and I think we will need to see acts on the ground in terms of promises kept," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
Germany also said the Taliban will be judged "by their actions" rather than pledges.
And the US said it hoped the Taliban would follow through on its promises.
"If the Taliban says they are going to respect the rights of their citizens, we will be looking for them to uphold that statement and make good on that statement," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
Based on the new scheme of the UK, 5,000 eligible people which includes girls, women and other groups will be given priority and will be flown out in the first year while the rest will be resettled in upcoming years.
Other high-ranking officials on the other hand sort of criticized the scheme and said that the number of visa should be increased to 35,000 or 40,000. 
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