Italy ready to evacuate diplomats and civilians from Kabul

Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said in an interview with the newspaper Il Corriere della Sera that Italy was ready to quickly evacuate its diplomats and trapped Taliban civilians from Kabul.

In just a week, the Taliban had driven almost the entire north, west and south of Afghanistan to the gates of Kabul.

We are preparing for any eventuality including evacuation. We need to think about the safety of our embassy staff and our citizens. If necessary, we will expedite them all safely back to Italy.

Italy, one of the Western powers most involved in Afghanistan, has already brought home its last troops in June as part of a rapid withdrawal of NATO units. Italy, along with the United States, Turkey, the United Kingdom and Germany, was one of the five countries involved in the most resolution support missions.

In total, 723 Italian soldiers were injured and 53 lost their lives, out of a total of 50,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan over the past 20 years.

“West Was Wrong”

According to the foreign minister, “Europe will have to play a leading role and pretend to be a credible negotiator on the geopolitical chessboard”.

The latter, in fact, classifies this action plan as generic, making “mistakes in the West”.

Defense Minister Lorenzo Guerini spoke on Friday about the fate of Afghan translators collaborating with the Italian military. “Despite the rapid deterioration in the security situation, humanitarian transport efforts for Afghan personnel who have cooperated with Italy continue,” he said in a statement.

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