Turkish foreign minister briefs Afghan counterpart on NATO talks

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Thursday briefed his Afghan counterpart Mohammad Hanif Atmar on NATO discussions in which the allies agreed to withdraw their forces from Afghanistan by 11 September.

NATO allies agreed the withdrawal plan on Wednesday in co-ordination with a U.S. pull-out by 11 September, and pledged to mirror American plans to start removing troops on May 1 after two decades of war.

Cavusoglu attended the talks at NATO's headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday over Afghanistan, ahead of a peace summit planned from 24 April in Istanbul that would include the United Nations and more than 20 countries.

"Our Minister briefed his counterpart on developments from the Resolute Support Mission Framework Nations and NATO Council meetings held on 14 April, as well as about what will happen in the coming period," Turkey's foreign ministry said.

The two ministers also discussed the peace process in the phone call, it said.

In a televised interview on Thursday, Cavusoglu said NATO was discussing how to support Afghanistan in the coming period.

"Whether it will be under a different mission – not the Resolute Support Mission – or whether a group of nations will be here, with NATO or other institutional support, or whether there will be another structure, on a bilateral or individual level, these all need to be discussed," he said.

Earlier on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to Kabul to show support for the Afghan government a day after President Joe Biden announced that he was pulling out U.S. forces.

The foreign troop withdrawals have raised concerns that Afghanistan could erupt again in full-scale civil war, providing al-Qaida space in which to rebuild and plan new attacks on U.S. and other targets.    (Reuters)