The fact that the Taliban took power in Afghanistan will have long-term global political consequences, the President of Germany estimates.
“These days we are experiencing a human tragedy for which we share responsibility and a political turning point that will shake us and change the world,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Berlin.
Germany, he says, must now do everything possible to bring its compatriots and Afghans, who have helped them for years, to safety.
“Bitter questions” need to be answered
The rapid collapse of the Afghan government and its armed forces, as well as the fact that the Taliban took power without resistance, “cast a long shadow,” the president said.
“The failure of our many years of efforts to build a stable and sustainable community in Afghanistan raises fundamental questions about the past and future of our foreign policy and military engagement,” said Steinmeier, a former foreign minister.
“Bitter questions” open up that should be answered honestly and thoroughly. And those answers must be sought together within NATO. “Because, without that alliance and solidarity, we would not have gone to Afghanistan 20 years ago,” the German president reminded.
German development aid to Afghanistan abolished
The government in Berlin, meanwhile, has suspended aid for the development of Afghanistan, said the competent minister Gerd Miller.
All German and foreign officials of the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), which is responsible for development aid, have left Afghanistan safely.
That country has been the largest recipient of German development aid so far, and 250 million euros should have been paid this year alone. Of that amount, nothing has been paid to Afghanistan so far.
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