3 yıl önce

Turkey, US to maintain contacts on Kabul airport security – Turkey's Akar

Turkey has offered to guard and run Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport after NATO's withdrawal from the country and has been holding talks with the United States on logistic and financial support for the mission.

Reuters

FILE PHOTO: An aerial view of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul in Afghanistan, February 11, 2016.

Contacts between Turkey and the US over the security of Kabul's international airport after the US pullout will continue after Washington's troop withdrawal from the country.

The announcement was made on Friday by Turkey's Defence Minister Hulusi Akar who added that "no decision has been reached at the moment”.

“We will discuss the outcome of the talks at a meeting chaired by our president. And we will put the plan into effect after the president’s approval,” he told reporters on Friday after his visit to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

A delegation of US State Department and Pentagon officials arrived in Ankara last week to discuss progress on efforts to keep Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul operational after the US troop pullout, set to conclude by September 11.

Both parties later agreed to continue discussions, a Turkish National Defence Ministry statement said.

The situation in Afghanistan heated up after US President Joe Biden announced that all American forces will withdraw from the war-torn country by September 11, with NATO allies doing the same.

Ankara already running ops for six years

Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed the issue at a recent NATO leaders’ summit in Brussels.

Ankara has been running the military and logistic operations of the Kabul airport for six years as part of the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission.

Turkey, whose forces in Afghanistan have always been non-combatants, has reportedly offered to guard the airport amid questions over how security will be assured along major transport routes and at the airport, which is the main gateway to the capital.

A Taliban spokesperson said Turkey should withdraw its troops from Afghanistan under the 2020 deal for the pullout of US forces, but Washington and Ankara have said the plans will press on.

SOURCE: AA