Washington. June 17. INTERFAX-The Turkish military will play a leading role in ensuring the security of the Kabul airport after the end of the NATO mission in Afghanistan, US and Turkish Presidents Joe Biden and Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed.
"Biden and Erdogan agreed that they would work together for this," Bloomberg quoted National Security adviser Jake Sullivan as saying on Thursday.
Earlier, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar announced Ankara's proposal to secure the Kabul airport after the withdrawal of US troops.
In turn, the leadership of the Afghan Taliban movement (banned in Russia) opposed Ankara's proposal to guard the Kabul airport, saying that Turkey should also withdraw troops in accordance with the 2020 agreement on the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan.
"Turkey has been part of the NATO forces for the past 20 years, so they must withdraw from Afghanistan on the basis of the agreement that we signed with the United States on February 29, 2020," the Turkish newspaper Sabah quoted the Taliban representative in Doha, Suhail Shaheen, as saying.
U.S. forces and their NATO allies have begun to withdraw from Afghanistan. It is planned that this process will be completed before September 11, 2021.
