Dominic Raab on crisis in Afghanistan

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab joined Good Morning Britain live this morning to discuss the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan. 

Speaking to hosts Ranvir Singh and Charlotte Hawkins about exactly how much time there is left to evacuate those from Afghanistan, Dominic explained:

“The military plan is affirming that up. We’ve only got days left, not weeks clearly, but they’ll firm up the precise time. But what they’re trying to do is limit the period in which they need to draw down their personnel and their equipment.

“We got 2,000 people out over the last 24 hours from the latest data that I saw. If you take it right the way back to April that’s 11,000 people – British nationals, Afghan workers and increasingly people like achieving scholars, journalists and others who are at risk. We will continue the effort at the highest title and at the maximum capacity for the hours and days that we have got left.”

On just how many people will be left behind, Dominic suggested: “It will depend on how big the window we’ve got left is and how many we manage to get through, and also in the last analysis how many actually want to come, because there are some finely balanced cases…

“I can’t think of a moment in living memory of the UK where we’ve achieved such a demanding task in such difficult conditions and that’s a tribute to all of those on the ground and we’ll just keep going at it because we want to get as many out in the time available and of course, we’re doing the contingency planning for beyond August as well.”

Pressed on what the next phase for dealing with the Afghanistan crisis will look like, Dominic answered: “The Taliban had previously said they would secure safe passage, allow our withdrawal of troops – we should hold them to that commitment.

“They have shown an ability to engage in security around the airport during the most recent period and of course, what they’re saying at the moment is that they want to avoid the brain drain from Afghanistan. If that’s the case they are going to have to operate in a different way, a more inclusive way, a more benign way, less coercive way than they have done in the past. If not, then there’s nothing that they’re going to be able to do to seal the borders. You’ll see an exodus from Afghanistan. We’ll make sure that we can support the countries in the region with that and also be clear that we will continue to live up to the assurances we’ve made to process obviously those British nationals, but also the Afghans who work for us from third countries, if and as they can get to them.

“I think it’s very unlikely the Taliban will be able to seal the border. If they want to avoid that brain drain, they will have to behave in a more reasonable way – and that will include the way they treat their own people, but also the way they engage with internationals.”

Dominic continued: “This is going to be an incredibly important test, which is why the Prime Minister reconvened the G7 to forge a clear set of priorities. One of which will be safe passage, another will be human rights, in particular women.

“I think the other thing we’ve got to do to exert influence is to broaden the countries involved, which is why I’ve been speaking to the Chinese, the Pakistani Forgein Minister, the Indian Forgein Minister. I’ve got more calls like that to exercise the maximum moderating influence that we can. Ultimately, the levers we’ve got will be the aid that we’re willing to provide, they’ll have to provide a permissive environment for NGOs and the UN if they want that to support the situation – we’re not going to give it to the Taliban. If they want access to any of the international financial institutions, they’ll have to show that they can pass some of these tests.”

Asked if he now wishes he had come home from holiday earlier, Dominic admitted:

“With the benefit of hindsight of course it’s easy to say, but I wouldn’t have gone on holiday – and we’ve come home earlier. But just to be clear, it would’ve made no difference to the call to the Afghanistan Minister, which we’d delegated and put in the request. By that point he was already on his way out of Afghanistan, he departed on the Sunday…” No, it’s wrong. I was not told by my officials to come home and the advice that we received was late-Friday Afghan time around 6 o’clock, so the idea that on the Saturday, when departure plans had been made by the Afghan government, they would have suddenly been able to deal with one element is just wrong.

“What we were focused on, and all of the advice that came to me, including when I was away, was securing the stability of the airport, securing the capacity to process those claims and since 15th August we secured the safe passage back of over 9,000 UK nationals, Afghan workers and others.”

On the date of withdrawal not being a surprise, so why did he go on holiday: “I based it on the information we had. First of all, we’d done contingency planning. We didn’t start evacuation on 15th August. In April I made clear, we changed our travel advice, we told our nationals to leave Afghanistan straight away. My consular teams were providing support…

“We didn’t take our eye off the ball… but what is certainly true is the pace of the collapse of the Afghan government and the control that the Taliban exerted was faster than anyone had predicted, including probably the Taliban.”

“At all of those times you’re talking about, I was engaged on COBRA meetings… Over 9,000 people were evacuated and so I think it shows you that we were on the job, we were gripping the issue – myself and across government.”

On if there will be any guilt felt on 1st September for those left behind in Afghanistan, Dominic said: “The primary responsibility is on the Taliban…”

Asked what is the red line for British troops returning to Afghanistan: “I’m not going to speculate on that, we’re in the middle of a withdrawal. Of course, the United Kingdom retains the right to exercise self-defence in relation to our nationals and our country.”

And on Pen Farthing: “We want to try and facilitate as much as we humanly can, we understand all of the heart and soul that’s gone into that charity, but we’ve got to prioritise ultimately getting individuals out and not see people bumped off or flights displaced for pets… We hope that that gets resolved.”

Good Morning Britain weekdays from 6am on ITV and ITV Hub.