Boris Johnson also cautions that Afghanistan should not become ‘breeding ground’ of terror
LONDON (AA) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that the UK and its western allies should work together with the future government in Afghanistan and to ensure that the country does not become a “breeding ground for terror.”
“It is clear that there is going to be, or there is going to be very shortly, a new government in Kabul or a new political dispensation – however you want to put it. I think its very important that west collectively should work together to get over to that new government, be it by the Taliban or anybody else,” Johnson said in a televised statement.
“Nobody wants Afghanistan, once again, to be a breeding ground of terror and we don’t think it is in the interest of the people of Afghanistan that it should lapse back into that state, that pre-2001 state,” he added.
The prime minister admitted that the US President Joe Biden’s decision to fast track the withdrawal of all American forces earlier this year “accelerated” unfolding events in the country, but argued that this was expected and foretold a long time ago and that the UK’s military mission in the country ended in 2014.
He also acknowledged that the international community will now have to move on and enter a new phase in its relationship with Afghanistan where it will have to deal with the new leadership and government.
“What we’re dealing with now is the very likely advent of a new regime in Kabul, we don’t know exactly what kind of a regime that will be but what we want to do is make sure that we as the UK pull together our international partners, our likeminded partners, so that we deal with that regime in a concerted way,” he said.