UK ‘willing to engage’ with Taliban, says minister

The UK is “willing to engage” with the Taliban “if [they] start acting like a government,” says the government minister, stressing that in spite of the withdrawal, Britain will continue to help people eligible for resettlement.

Speaking to the BBC Breakfast on Monday, James Cleverly, Minister of State for West Asia and North Africa, expressed the government’s goodwill toward the Taliban and said, “If they start facilitating both internal travel and exiting from Afghanistan, then we will engage with them on that basis.”

The UK’s Afghanistan evacuation concluded on Saturday night with the last military flight leaving Kabul, bringing a sudden end to the 20-year deployment. However, the government says it will continue its resettlement scheme. But Cleverly said he could not give “absolute assurances” to those left behind.

“What we are not able to do, what no country is ever really able to do, is give an absolute cast-iron guarantee,” he said, adding that the government is “skeptical” of promises made by the Taliban that it will allow safe passage of eligible people out of the country.

Earlier on Sunday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said providing safe passage to refugees fleeing the country is one of the conditions for the Taliban to be granted diplomatic recognition by Britain.

The UK is seeking international agreement to ensure the Taliban sticks to its commitment. In this regard, Foreign Secretary Dominic Rabb, who was on holiday when the Afghanistan crisis began, is set to hold a series of diplomatic meetings this week with G7 counterparts, NATO, Qatar and Turkey, focusing on future engagement with the Taliban, in a bid to find an international consensus on how to deal with Afghanistan’s new government.

MG