French President Macron Mossul Iraq
Source: Courtesy Elysee/Pdt Macron
JOURNALIST: « Hello. Regarding Afghanistan, there was a first contact yesterday between France and the Taliban. Are they committed to the possible continuation of the evacuations? Are these evacuations the sine qua non for any dialogue with them? In addition, you met the Emir of Qatar earlier. What did you say to yourself? How can Qatar help France in the pursuit of these evacuations of Afghans? »-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON « Qatar has played an important role for several months, at the request of the Americans and the previous administration, to lead, first to shelter, then to participate in negotiations with the Taliban. In this context, I want to salute the role of the Emir of Qatar and all of his diplomacy who have carried out in-depth work and who, in particular in the context in which we live, play an extremely important role and useful. As you know, our American allies are in the process, in accordance with the commitments they had made with the Taliban, to close the military airport through which we have carried out evacuation operations since mid-August last and which has made it possible to 'evacuate 2,800 French, European and Afghan nationals, for an overwhelming Afghan majority, whom we wanted to protect or repatriate, ourselves having stopped these operations yesterday. We are in the process of conducting discussions, they are still fragile and very provisional, which is why I will be extremely careful in my response. But yes, there are discussions that have started with the Taliban on the subject of humanitarian operations and the ability to protect and repatriate Afghans who are at risk.
Then, yes, we have work that we are doing jointly with Qatar, among others, to allow these operations to be carried out because Qatar, in the context of the discussions they have with the Taliban, has the possibility - I'm talking about still conditional - perhaps to organize airlift operations, in any case reopening certain air lines under security conditions which remain to be defined. That is why I will remain very cautious, but which would allow evacuation operations in a necessarily different framework and within a framework necessarily and systematically negotiated with the Taliban, and in particular with operations to secure the Taliban.
For what concerns us and to be very clear because I know that there is a lot of anguish in many families, we have on all the Afghan women and all the Afghans who have been reported to us, and who seem eligible precisely for the asylum procedure, but which are in any case to be protected given what they are, the fight they carry, we have each time that we have obtained this information to contact them, transmitted titles, certificates to these women and men. Several hundred of them, moreover, have already had them, who could not reach the airport. We evacuated over 2,200 in the critical period, but there are still many hundreds that are on site. So our goal is for us to be able in the days, weeks or months to come, through this cooperative work with Qatar, in discussions with the Taliban, to carry out targeted evacuation operations to protect these women and men that we have identified, to whom we have given these provisional titles. This, very clearly, is a condition for us of any form of political engagement and therefore ultimately a procedure which would engage France as our allies with regard to the Taliban. I have had the opportunity to say this on several occasions. There are important lists that have been negotiated, that have come out of G7 communiques and others.---------------------------------------------------------------------------
But for me, the essential prerequisites to claim to discuss the future and to have some elements of recognition or political commitment, it is first of all that the Taliban absolutely respect humanitarian law and the protection of Afghans who wish to go out and benefit from this protection and in particular from constitutional asylum. For artists, for intellectuals, for journalists, magistrates, for many women, it is essential. This is the first condition. The second condition is respect for a clear commitment and a red line towards all terrorist groups, and verifiable clarity in this regard. The third is respect for human rights and in particular for the dignity of women and their rights. These subjects are important and our will is to have coordinated action, this is what we decided in G7. This is what we are now also deciding with our partners. I had this discussion with all the partners in the region who also wish to coordinate with us in this process of political management of a phase which is going to be inevitably chaotic, strongly destabilized, but where we must hold some firm principles.
To give you the figures very precisely on evacuations: I have had the opportunity to recall this on several occasions, but I want to give the framework here. France, as you know, which has not been engaged militarily since the end of 2014, has already evacuated and protected more than 830 auxiliaries of the French army, plus families, in the period preceding the crisis we have just experienced. We did this over the long term, in peace by going to find all those who presented themselves by checking their titles, by protecting their families. We then, within the framework of the right to asylum, constantly carried out our work and did our duty, France having received the request of several tens of thousands of Afghans and Afghans in recent years. On average, 10,000 per year were presented, and France having one of the highest protection rates in Europe: 89% protection rate, much more than other European countries. These are the Afghans who came to us for asylum. Third element: before the peak of the crisis in mid-August, we evacuated all of our local staff and their families to protect them, which represents around 630 people. This is a job we did last spring. We have sometimes been criticized for saying: "You see things too pessimistically". I am delighted to have been lucid and not pessimistic. We were able, outside of these emergency operations, to protect all the staff of our embassy and our nationals. Then from the heart of the crisis, we have been able to evacuate exactly 2,834 people from Afghan soil, including 142 French people, 17 Europeans, and therefore, as you can see, more than 2,600 Afghans to be very precise on the figures and this, through fifteen flights from the United Arab Emirates since August 17. This work has been made possible thanks to the commitment of our diplomatic teams, at the quayside crisis center, which I would like to thank, since its leader is alongside the Minister today and will be called upon to take on imminent responsibilities for French diplomacy here. This allows me to greet all the teams at the crisis center and also the teams obviously present in Kabul: the ambassador, his staff, but also our soldiers and our police, there you have it. »
