The United States can maintain its military contingent in Afghanistan even after August 31, if by that time it will not be possible to evacuate all its citizens from the Islamic Republic, said the head of the White House Joe Biden.
"The Americans should understand that we will try to complete this process by August 31. .."If there are still American citizens there, we will stay to take them all out," the American leader said in an interview with ABC News on August 18.
Biden stressed that the US authorities will do everything to evacuate all Americans from Afghanistan, as well as their allies.
According to the president, the United States plans to export 50-65 thousand Afghans from the Islamic Republic.
Earlier in the interview, Biden pointed to the difficulties with the evacuation of local residents of Afghanistan, who helped the Americans at the time of their presence in this country.
On August 17, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said that Washington is striving to increase the pace of evacuation from Afghanistan to 9 thousand people per day. According to him, three bases in the United States are ready to accept up to 22 thousand refugees from Afghanistan in the coming weeks.
The situation in Afghanistan began to worsen after the United States, which had been in the region since 2001, began withdrawing its troops in early May. It is planned to complete it by the end of August.
On August 15, representatives of the radical Taliban movement (a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation) entered Kabul, then announced the "end of the war" in Afghanistan, calling it "the liberation of the country". The Taliban said they would soon announce the creation of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and also demanded the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has resigned and left the country.
On the same day, the United States began evacuating employees of its diplomatic missions in the country. American leader Joe Biden said that Washington plans to deploy a total of 5,000 military personnel in Afghanistan to ensure the safe evacuation of diplomats from the country. At the same time, he threatened that any actions on the part of the Taliban that would endanger US personnel or their mission would receive a "quick and strong military reaction".
