Afghanistan Crisis LIVE: India Announces First Formal Meet With Taliban, Biden Defends US Exit

India on Tuesday, for the primary time, admitted to having held diplomatic talks with the Taliban which has taken control of Afghanistan within the past few days following the withdrawal folks forces from there. An Indian envoy met a pacesetter of the terrorist organization in Doha, Qatar’s capital. The meeting happened following an invitation by the new rulers of the strife-hit country.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden on Tuesday defended his decision to tug troops out of Afghanistan, saying it had been within the US national interest, reported press agency AFP.

“We not had a transparent purpose in an open-ended mission in Afghanistan,” he said each day after the ultimate withdrawal.

“This is that the right decision. A wise decision. and therefore the best decision for America,” he said.

A plane carrying 175 Afghans fleeing their strife-torn homeland arrived in Mexico on Tuesday night on one among the last flights to go away Kabul on the day U.S. forces completed a withdrawal that left Taliban Islamist militants on top of things of Afghanistan.

It was the fourth group of Afghan civilians granted entry by Mexico on humanitarian grounds. a far off ministry statement said the newest group to arrive included independent journalists and activists amid their families, including 75 children.

Three previous flights from Afghanistan to Mexico over the past week included Afghan media workers from prominent U.S.-based newspapers.

A source with knowledge of the operation to evacuate Afghans deemed in danger following the Taliban take over told Reuters the newest group to arrive in Mexico included journalists from Afghan news outlets TOLO TV and Arman FM radio.

Britain has opened talks with the Taliban over the “safe passage” of its remaining nationals and allies out of Afghanistan after the hardline Islamist group’s quickfire takeover of the country last month.

The British government confirmed to AFP it’s dispatched senior official Simon Gass to satisfy with Taliban representatives in Doha.

Much of the group’s senior leadership lived in exile within the Qatari capital until the overthrow of Afghanistan’s Western-backed government after 20 years of war.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has come under attack after many Afghans who helped NATO — and are eligible to maneuver to Britain — were believed to possess been left stranded in Afghanistan, where they’re at the mercy of the Taliban.

Gass is “meeting with senior Taliban representatives to underline the importance of safe passage out of Afghanistan for British nationals, and people Afghans who have worked with us,” a government spokesperson told AFP on Wednesday.

The Taliban representative who met Ambassador Deepak Mittal, India’s envoy in Qatar, on Tuesday in Doha, trained under the Indian Army at its elite institutions within the late 1970s and early 1980s. one among the seven persons who call the shots within the terrorist organization that recently took over power in Afghanistan, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai may be a key diplomat of the insurgent group.

This is the primary time India has admitted to having made diplomatic contact with the Taliban.

Ambassador Mittal met Stanikzai, who is head of the Taliban’s Political Office in Qatar, consistent with a handout from the Ministry of External Affairs. They met at the Indian Embassy in Doha, the statement said.

Stanikzai trained with the Indian Army between 1979 and 1982 — three years within the Army Cadet College, Nowgaon, as a jawan then as a politician at Indian academy , Dehradun.\

The UN Security Council , under India’s Presidency, adopted a robust resolution demanding that territory of Afghanistan not be wont to threaten any country or shelter terrorists which it expects the Taliban will adhere to commitments made by it regarding the safe and orderly departure from the country of Afghans and every one foreign nationals. Read more

Facing sharp criticism over the tumultuous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden said on Tuesday it had been the simplest available choice to end both the United States’ longest war and decades of fruitless efforts to remake other countries through military unit .

Biden portrayed the chaotic exit as a logistical success that might are even as messy albeit it had been launched weeks earlier, while staying within the country would have required committing more American troops.

“I wasn’t getting to extend this forever war,” he said during a speech from the White House.

Earlier within the day, the Taliban, which seized control of Afghanistan during a lightning advance this month, fired guns into the air and paraded coffins draped in U.S. and NATO flags as they celebrated their victory.

In his first remarks since the ultimate pullout of U.S. forces on Monday, Biden said 5,500 Americans had been evacuated which the us had leverage over the Islamist militant group to make sure 100 to 200 others could also depart if they wanted to.