US President Joe Biden on Monday expressed his complete conviction that he made the right decision regarding Afghanistan.
"My job is to make judgments that no one else can or won´t," Biden said in an interview at the White House. I did, and I am sure I am absolutely right not to make the decision to send more young men and women to war.”
Biden responded with this to a request to comment on opinion polls stating that the majority of Americans do not agree with the way events are developing in Afghanistan, noting also that he had not seen these polls.
On Friday, the US President announced that his country has evacuated 33,000 people from Afghanistan since last July, pointing out at the same time that the “Taliban” is cooperating with the United States in expanding the safe zone around Kabul Airport.
For his part, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday that President Joe Biden did not rule out sending more troops to the airport in Kabul, but "for the time being, we believe we have sufficient forces on the ground."
"Right now we think we have enough forces on the ground, but every day the president asks his commanders if they need additional resources and additional forces," Sullivan told NBC. So far, the answer has been no, but he will ask again today.”
In other statements to CNN, Sullivan also said Sunday that the United States places the defense of crowds at Kabul airport seeking to leave Afghanistan "a top priority" against a possible terrorist attack by the "Islamic State".
"The threat is real, severe and persistent, and it´s something we focus on with every tool in our arsenal," he added.
"We are working very hard with our intelligence community to try to isolate and identify where an attack might come from," he said.
On Monday, CNN quoted an official source that the United States will allow only Americans, green card holders and citizens of NATO countries to enter Kabul airport.
The US State Department also announced that the airport in the Afghan capital, Kabul, will be closed for 48 hours to evacuate those already on its floor, numbering in the hundreds.
The US National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, had earlier threatened the extremist "Taliban" movement, with a swift and strong response if it prevented US citizens from leaving Afghanistan.
In a related context, a Taliban official stated that foreign forces in Afghanistan did not seek to extend the deadline they set to leave the country, which ends on August 31.
And American media reported that the British Prime Minister will try to persuade the American president to extend the deadline for the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan during urgent talks by the Group of Seven, and the British newspaper “Telegraph” quoted informed sources, “(British Prime Minister Boris) Johnson’s intention personally to ask the American president. Biden postponed the withdrawal of US forces, after attempts by British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab and Defense Minister Ben Wallace to ask their American colleagues about this issue failed," according to the US Bloomberg Agency.
The newspaper pointed out that the two ministers tried to convince the American side of the necessity of this step in private.
According to the statements of the British Prime Minister´s office (to the Telegraph), "the G7 meeting will focus on what is happening in Afghanistan in the long term, but of course they will discuss the current evacuation efforts."
Johnson announced earlier that he would hold urgent talks on Tuesday between the leaders of the Group of Seven countries on the situation in Afghanistan. Biden later announced that he would participate in it, stressing that the meeting would be held virtually (by video conference).
All Afghan land border crossings are currently under Taliban control.
The evacuation of foreign and Afghan employees of foreign organizations is carried out through the only airport in Kabul, which is under the control of the US military, along with forces from other NATO countries.
