(Reuters) – Following are international reactions after the Taliban entered Kabul on Sunday having taken control of much of the rest of Afghanistan:
PAKISTANI FOREIGN OFFICE SPOKESMAN ZAHID HAFEEZ CHAUDHRY
“We’re concerned about the increasingly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan…We have not taken any decision to close our embassy,” he told Geo News TV
AUSTRIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ALEXANDER SCHALLENBERG
“Conflict and instability in the region will sooner or later spill over to Europe and thus to Austria,” Austria’s APA news agency quoted him as saying in announcing an aid conference to support Afghanistan’s central Asian neighbours.
EU COMMISSIONER MARGARITIS SCHINAS
“The clock has run out on how long we can wait to adopt the complete overhaul of Europe’s migration and asylum rules we need,” Schinas said in a tweet, citing his comments in Italian paper La Stampa.
U.S. PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN, IN A STATEMENT ON SATURDAY BEFORE THE TALIBAN ENTERED KABUL
“One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country. And an endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me.”
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux)
