Britain working to keep airport open in Afghanistan after troops withdraw

Published

4 years ago

August 24, 2021

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Britain is actively working to keep an airport open in Afghanistan after the final withdrawal of troops, Sky News understands.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said after Tuesday’s G7 summit that the number one priority for the West in coming months was to ensure safe passage for people who want to leave Afghanistan after 31 August when Western forces withdraw.

More specifics about this effort were revealed when the foreign secretary briefed MPs.

Dominic Raab told MPs that the government wants to see a functioning airport after the troops’ departure, appearing to suggest commercial flights might be able take people out of the country in future.

“If we want to do this in a more managed way and really take the steep angle off the cliff edge, what we really could do with is the Taliban being able to run a functional airport in Kabul,” he said.

He added that neighbouring countries could help uphold international aviation standards at the airport to keep it open.

“I’m sure there will be various neighbouring countries that will want to see if they can help them keep that airport open or indeed whether they want to get in members of the previous government, or the officials, to do that job.”

This would appear to be part of an attempt to ensure a more enlightened Taliban, rather than the return of what Mr Raab called “Taliban 1.0” – the type of regime that ran Afghanistan until 2001.

Mr Raab said: “We’ll use all levers we can to try and secure a transitional government whereby the Taliban takes in a broader range of Afghan political figures and leaders, and then also try make sure they can live up to better standards of human rights and wider government standards than what we saw with – if I can put it that way – Taliban 1.0.”

The British government is also looking with allies to create land routes within Afghanistan to help people reach neighbouring countries from where they can fly to the UK, something the Taliban is already making clear it opposes.

Mr Raab said: “I think the important ask of (the Taliban) now, in the same way as I mentioned ‘do they really want humanitarian aid given the potential collapse?’ Are they going to keep this going? Are they going to continue to allow nationals, (people with the right to reside in Britain), special cases, to leave?

“And I think that when we think of the range of levers that we’ve got, we can use these levers to say to the Taliban, we expect – and they are already committing to allow a safe passage out.”

Western countries believe they have strong economic leverage in the coming months.

Mr Raab said they believe that the Taliban’s single biggest priority is to avoid economic collapse after Western powers leave the country. This might give the West some influence in Afghanistan, as it means the Taliban could be seeking access to finance, access to development spending and fear the impact of sanctions.

“We will use every lever at our disposal to achieve that, from access to the international finance system, to the conditions we set around being willing to provide ODA (development assistance) through to sanctions,” he said.

Mr Raab said they hoped to gain assistance from other key countries not in the G7 such as China, India and Pakistan.

However this remark acknowledges a coordinated response from the international community could prove challenging if countries like Russia and China seek advantage by deciding to deal bilaterally with the new Afghan government.

The ideal way of dealing with the Taliban government in future would mirror that used in the Balkans, Mr Raab said.

He said he wanted an “international contact group” which the Western powers could use to liaise with the new Taliban government, based on the model from the former Yugoslavia.

He said they are “likely to have more influence on (the) Taliban with a broader group of countries who can really try and moderate what is happening on (the) ground.”

Mr Raab told MPs that almost all “mono national Britons (Britons without dual nationality)” have been evacuated, but he refused to be drawn on the numbers who would be left behind.

He stressed that the last few days would make “all the difference” and insisted the UK was still working on routes out of the country using airports both inside and outside Afghanistan.

“We have probably now got through – not all – but the lion’s share – the vast majority of the documented UK mono-nationals.”

After British citizens have been evacuated, Mr Raab said the next priorities for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) would be female human rights activists, female judges, members of the LBGT+ community and the children of British passport holders where the lack of documentation for children whose parents are eligible to go to the UK is keeping the whole family in country.

Mr Raab told the 100 MPs on the call that there had been 11,000 people evacuated from April to August.

Politics

Starmer and other leaders have fallen into line on Trump’s Gaza plan – now it must deliver

Published

8 hours ago

October 13, 2025

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Starmer and other leaders have fallen into line on Trump's Gaza plan - now it must deliver

I’ve been around a while and seen a lot of the insides of international summits over the years, but this one was truly extraordinary.

Over 20 leaders flew to Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt from all over the world – Indonesia, Pakistan, Norway, Canada – to witness the signing of Donald Trump’s peace plan.

Gaza deal signed – as it happened

This historic day was pure theatre for Trump from start to finish. Flying in from Israel, where he had met hostage families and then addressed the Israeli parliament, he arrived a whopping three hours late, keeping a gaggle of world leaders waiting.

We stood around in corridors watching them move from one room to another to hold meetings with each other, presumably to talk about phase two of Trump’s peace deal.

Testimony to the power of Trump

At one point, Sir Keir Starmer’s meeting with his Turkish counterpart included France’s Emmanuel Macro. That then somehow morphed into a summit which also brought in the Germans, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and the leaders of Egypt and Qatar. More chairs kept coming into the room until there was the equivalent of a cabinet table of leaders and advisors sitting in a long line facing each other.

What they were talking about was how each country could help in phase two of the peace effort. Now Trump had, alongside fellow signatories of this deal – Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey – ended the war, could they maintain the peace?

As Starmer put it: “We can’t treat today as historic and let it drop tomorrow.”

But these mini summits in the margins happened by fault rather than design. This day really was designed to bear witness – and offer acknowledgement – to Trump. All of these leaders turned up pretty much in the dark as to what the day held, with his peace summit convened 48 hours earlier.

That they dropped plans to make their way to Egypt is testimony to the power Trump wields.

He was utterly omnipotent. First, there was the greeting ceremony, in which each leader filed in individually for a photo and handshake with him before all returning to the stage for the family photo.

Then, at the signing ceremony, Trump sat with his three fellow signatories as the world leaders stood behind him.

“This took 3,000 years to get to this point. Can you believe it?” Trump said as he signed that deal. “And it’s going to hold up, too. It’s going to hold up.”

Finally, in another giant hall, Trump gave a speech in which he ran through all the leaders who had turned up – praising them or fondly poking a bit of fun at them accordingly, as (most) of them stood behind him.

He teased Macron for sitting in the front row rather than joining the others on the stage, joking it wasn’t like him to be low-key. He described Meloni as a “beautiful young woman”.

“I’m not allowed to say it because usually it’s the end of your political career if you say it – she’s a beautiful young woman,” said Trump mid-speech. “You don’t mind being called beautiful, right? Because you are,” he turned to say to her – her reaction obscured from view.

Now for the ‘easy part’?

Soon after, the prime minister of Pakistan, invited to say a few remarks by Trump, renewed his call for the US president to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Having brokered the deal, Trump took the moment and made it into his summit on his terms, as fellow leaders fell into line, literally standing behind him. And in his characteristic bullishness, he told his audience in this final speech that the hard part – the ceasefire – had been done, and rebuilding Gaza was the easy part.

That isn’t really what the rest of them believe: 92% of Gazans have been displaced, the Gaza Strip is a wasteland. Organising a peacekeeping force, getting Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw from the strip, putting together a technocratic team and peace board to oversee the running of Gaza still needs to be done.

This was a largely celebratory day, but there are concerns whether this deal will hold up. Trump says Hamas needs to disarm and disband, and yet one of their most senior leaders told Sky News a few days ago, it won’t.

Meanwhile, there is a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The UK has in short order sent in £20m of aid to try to help with sanitation.

On the British side, the prime minister said he had offered to help demilitarise the strip, saying the UK can take a role in “monitoring the ceasefire but also decommissioning the capability of Hamas and their weaponry, drawing on our experience in Northern Ireland”.

“It’s really important we keep that focus. We mustn’t have any missteps now,” he said.

Trump’s peace board is still in its infancy – Starmer told me he isn’t going to sit on it, with the make-up still being discussed, while Tony Blair’s participation is controversial.

Trump said on the way over to Egypt that he was going to canvass opinion to make sure everyone is happy with the former prime minister’s presence. It comes after Bassem Naim of Hamas told Sky News that Blair was not welcome in Gaza after his role in the invasion of Iraq.

When I asked Starmer if he thought Trump should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize he said “there’ll be plenty of people, I’m sure, nominating him” – as he paid tribute to him for getting “leaders to this position”.

Now the task for them all is to implement what Trump has set in train. If his plan works, he would be sitting on an achievement that has eluded successive US presidents for decades.

Trump should rightly be lauded for ending the war, now he must bring the peace.

Politics

California governor signs laws establishing safeguards over AI chatbots

Published

9 hours ago

October 13, 2025

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California governor signs laws establishing safeguards over AI chatbots

The laws will likely impact social media companies and websites offering services to California residents, including minors, using AI tools.

Politics

UK played ‘vital role’ in Gaza peace deal, says Trump aide, after minister branded ‘delusional’

Published

12 hours ago

October 13, 2025

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UK played 'vital role' in Gaza peace deal, says Trump aide, after minister branded 'delusional'

Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, has claimed the UK played a “vital role” in helping negotiate the Gaza peace deal, smoothing over a potential diplomatic row between London and Washington.

Witkoff took to X on Monday, ahead of meeting President Donald Trump in Israel, to praise the UK.

“I would like to acknowledge the vital role of the United Kingdom in assisting and coordinating efforts that have led us to this historic day in Israel,” Witkoff wrote.

“In particular, I want to recognise the incredible input and tireless efforts of National Security Advisor Jonathan Powell.”

His comments came 24 hours after education secretary Bridget Phillipson was branded “delusional” by Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, for claiming that Sir Keir Starmer’s presence at a signing ceremony for today’s ceasefire deal in Egypt “demonstrates the key role that we [Britain] have played”.

The minister made her remarks on Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips but did not say exactly what the UK’s role in the ceasefire, largely attributed to Donald Trump, is or was.

Politics latest: Phillipson announces crackdown on antisemitism at UK universities

Phillipson added: “We have played a key role behind the scenes in shaping this.

“It’s right that we do so because it’s in all of our interest, including our own national interest, that we move to a lasting peace in the region.

“These are complex matters of diplomacy that we are involved in. But we do welcome and recognise the critical role that the American government played in moving us to this point.”

Her comments prompted Mr Huckabee to repost the Sky News clip on social media, claiming: “I assure you she’s delusional.”

He added: “She can thank Donald Trump anytime just to set the record straight.”

Mr Huckabee was part of the negotiating team for the peace deal, with Mr Trump calling the former Arkansas governor “AMAZING” as he said he “worked so hard, and did so much, to bring about peace in the Middle East”.

In August, Mr Huckabee said the UK and other European nations that said they would declare a Palestinian state were “having the counterproductive effect that they probably think that they want”.

Israel: UK did not play key role in peace deal

Israel’s deputy foreign affairs minister, Sharren Haskell backed Huckabee, telling Sky News the UK played “the opposite” of a key role in the peace deal after recognising the Palestinian state.

“The message that the UK government has sent Hamas was the message that: the longer they continue this war, they will be rewarded.

“I mean, you must understand that when a terrorist organisation is thanking you. You are on the wrong side of history.”

It is understood the prime minister has underlined Mr Trump’s key role in securing this deal throughout the process. Publicly, he praised Mr Trump twice in his press conference in India on Thursday.

Ms Phillipson stood by the September decision to declare a Palestinian state, saying it was “the right thing to do”.

Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, told Sky News it was a “moment of leadership” for the UK to declare a Palestinian state, and a “responsibility to begin to correct a century of the gravest historic injustices committed against our people”.

He added: “That moment three weeks ago, when the UK did recognise, is a moment when we can say that the wheels of history are turning in a different direction.”

No plans for British troops on the ground

The education secretary also told Sky News the government has “no plans” to put British troops into Israel or Gaza as part of a stabilisation force after the ceasefire.

The US military will help establish a multinational force in Israel, known as a civil-military coordination centre, which is likely to include troops from Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the UAE.

On Friday, US officials said up to 200 US troops already based in the Middle East will be moved to Israel to help monitor the ceasefire in Gaza.

The day before, President Trump announced Israel and Hamas had “signed off on the first phase” of a peace plan he unveiled last week.

Aid trucks have been gathering in Egypt to cross into Gaza after months of warnings by aid groups of famine in parts of the territory.

In Israel, the remaining hostages are due to be returned from Gaza by Hamas on Monday under the first phase of the peace plan. Twenty are believed to still be alive, 26 have been declared dead, while the fate of two is unknown.

The ceasefire agreement has been made two years after Hamas stormed Israel on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.

Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, which the UN deems reliable.