The government is committed to “full evacuation” of Indians from Afghanistan, where the situation is “critical”, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Thursday after briefing the leaders at an all-party meet on the Afghan situation.
During the meeting, which lasted for about three and a half hours, Jaishankar said the government has adopted a “wait and watch” approach in dealing with the Taliban, depending on the evolving situation, and later told reporters in an answer to a similar question that let the situation settle down there.
According to the Press Trust of India, the Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar; leader of the ppposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge of the Congress; leader of Congress party in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury; Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party’s T R Baalu; former prime minister H D Deve Gowda; Apna Dal’s Anupriya Patel were among those who attended the meeting. Trade minister Piyush Goyal and parliamentary affairs minister Prahlad Joshi joined Jaishankar for the briefing. Foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla and India’s ambassador to Afghanistan Rudrendra Tandon were also present at the briefing.
During the meeting, Jaishankar gave details of measures, some preemptive, taken from as early as last year, shortly after the US and the Taliban signed a pact that secured the safe departure of thousands of US-led international troops from Afghanistan. The pre-emptive measures included withdrawal of personnel from Indian consulates in Herat and Jalalabad in 2020 and those from Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif earlier this year, two people familiar with the development separately said.
According to one of the people cited above, Jaishankar told the leaders of the political parties that India’s priorities in the immediate aftermath of the Taliban surrounding Kabul and entering the city on 15 August included “evacuation of Indian nationals, safety of our diplomatic personnel and assistance to Afghan nationals in distress,” besides bringing home stranded nationals of countries in India’s neighbourhood and chairing a special UN Security Council session on Afghanistan.
