Pertaining to the current chaos in Afghanistan, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar after addressing the all-party meet said on Thursday said, “The government is committed to full evacuation of Indians from Afghanistan, where the situation is critical. When asked by the media regarding government’s approach over the ongoing turmoil led by Taliban, he said that “You will have to keep patience: Let the situation settle down.” Union minister and Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha Piyush Goyal was present in the official meet along with the Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi also attended the briefing.
According to the latest data released on the evacuation numbers of the Taliban residents, the government has evacuated around 175 Embassy Personnel, 263 Indian Nationals, 112 Afghan Nationals (comprising Hindus and Sikhs), 15 country nationals, wherein the total tally ended at 565. The document also read the government also facilitated evacuation of Indians by other agencies.
Prominent leaders like NCP leader Sharad Pawar, Opposition leader in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress party leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, DMK member T R Baalu, ex-prime minister H D Deve Gowda and Apna Dal member Anupriya Patel are amongst the attendees of the meet.
Jaishankar averred,”On this (Afghanistan) matter all political parties have similar views, we approached the issue with spirit of national unity.” “We briefed the Floor Leaders of all political parties today on the Afghanistan situation today. Our focus is on evacuation and the government is doing everything to evacuate people. Under Operation ‘Devi Shakti’ we’ve done 6 evacuation flights. We’ve brought back most of the Indians but not all of them as some of them couldn’t make it for the flight yesterday. We’ll definitely try and bring out everybody. We’ve also brought out some Afghan citizens. The government is very strongly committed to ensuring full evacuation as soon as possible, and also seeing that in terms of any international decisions which are made, any gatherings that are there, that our role is recognised. There will be many more meetings in coming days,” quoted EAM Jaishankar once the all-party meeting concluded.
