Jens Stoltenberg, 13 th Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is speak to the media at the NATO headquarter on February 11, 2020 in Brussels, Belgium.
Thierry Monasse/ Getty Images
WASHINGTON– NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg positioned the blame directly on the Afghan nationwide federal government Tuesday for the spectacular and speedy Taliban takeover, echoing remarks President Joe Biden made a day previously.
“Ultimately the Afghan political leadership failed to stand up to the Taliban and achieve the peaceful solution that Afghans desperately wanted,” Stoltenberg informed press reporters at NATO’s head office in Brussels.
“Despite our considerable investment and sacrifice over two decades, the collapse was swift and sudden. There are many lessons to be learned,” he stated, including that “the failure of Afghan leadership led to the tragedy we are witnessing today.”
In April, the 30- member military alliance together with the U.S. revealed the withdrawal of Afghanistan- based soldiers. The beginning of the NATO objective in Afghanistan comes from the groups’ shared defense stipulation, called Article 5.
The alliance has just invoked Article 5 as soon as in its history– in defense of the United States in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
American forces fell the Taliban in 2001 after the group harbored Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders who performed the terrorist attacks ofSept 11. Two years later on, U.S. soldiers got into Iraq, a relocation focused on eliminating then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
“NATO allies and partners, went into Afghanistan after 9/11 to prevent the country from serving as a safe haven for international terrorists to attack us. In the last two decades, there have been no terrorist attacks on allied soil, organized from Afghanistan,” Stoltenberg stated.
“Today’s Afghanistan is very different from Afghanistan of 2001,” he included.
Stoltenberg’s remarks come one day after Biden slammed Afghanistan’s political management for permitting fast Taliban gets throughout the nation amidst the departure of U.S. and NATO forces.
“The truth is this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated,” Biden stated in a speech from the White House, including that he had actually been ensured by now-deposed President Ashraf Ghani that the U.S.-trained and equipped Afghan soldiers would hold their positions.
“Mr. Ghani insisted the Afghan forces would fight, but obviously he was wrong,” Biden stated.
Despite being greatly surpassed by the Afghan military, which has actually long been helped by U.S. and union forces, the Taliban went into Kabul on Sunday.
Earlier on Sunday, Ghani left the nation as Western countries hurried to leave embassies amidst a degrading security scenario.
“American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves,” Biden stated. “We gave them every chance to determine their own future. We could not provide them with the will to fight for that future,” he included.
“I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces,” Biden stated in a remarkable speech provided from the East Room of the White House.
