Joe Biden: We hope we don't have to extend the deadline for evacuation from Afghanistan
US President Joe Biden said Sunday that he remains hopeful that evacuations in Kabul will be completed before August 31, the date his administration has set for the complete withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.
"We hope we don't have to extend" the deadline, the US president said, but at the same time left the door open to the possibility of that happening. "There will be discussions, I think," he added.
In response to a reporter's question what he would do if the allies demanded that the United States stay longer on the ground, Biden said, "We'll see what we can do."
On Saturday, the European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, considered it "impossible" to evacuate all Afghans collaborating with Western powers before August 31.
Also, several human rights organizations called on Biden to extend the deadline for the withdrawal of the United States.
Biden indicated, on Sunday, that about 28 thousand people have been evacuated since August 14, saying, "We are working hard and as quickly as possible to evacuate people."
He spoke of the painful scenes of Afghans gathering at Kabul airport in order to flee the country after the Taliban seized power, saying that "there is no way to evacuate so many people without the pain and loss and the painful images you see."
The US President indicated that US officials' keenness to complete the evacuation mission as soon as possible is due to the permanent threat posed by ISIS. "We know that terrorists may seek to take advantage of the situation," he said. The process is still dangerous.
The Afghan branch of ISIS in Khorasan has been in a weak position since the Afghan forces announced in 2019 their defeat in the eastern province of Nangarhar. But he showed that he still had the ability to carry out attacks in cities, including in Kabul.
