Berlin:
NATO will probably join the United States in withdrawing all troops from Afghanistan in September, German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer mentioned Wednesday.
“We always said: we’ll go in together, we’ll leave together,” she told ARD public tv. “I am for an orderly withdrawal and that is why I assume that we (NATO) will agree to that today.”
NATO defence and foreign ministers will hold a video conference Wednesday immediately after the US mentioned it was preparing to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the September 11 suicide hijackings this year.
A US official mentioned on Tuesday that President Joe Biden had reached the conclusion to finish Washington’s two-decade involvement in Afghanistan by late this year.
The US has some 2,500 troops in Afghanistan as component of a 9,600-powerful NATO mission in the nation.
NATO allies such as Germany had been waiting for Biden to choose whether or not the US would stick to a May 1 deadline to withdraw below a deal struck amongst the administration of former US leader Donald Trump and the Taliban.
Kramp-Karrenbauer mentioned it was now vital “for us in NATO to synchronise our planning with the US planning”. She did not give a precise date when German troops would withdrawal from the strife-racked nation.
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