Harsh criticism of the federal government for chaos during evacuation from Afghanistan

The CDU foreign politician Norbert Röttgen attacked the federal government hard for its Afghanistan policy. You should have considered in good time with the European partners “what our options are to mitigate the fatal consequences of the American wrong decision” for the withdrawal, said Röttgen of “Die Zeit”.

Instead of “trailing behind” the Americans, the Europeans “could at least have provided the Afghan government with advice, logistics and material,” Röttgen continues. The British had urged the other Europeans to do more, but “we just didn’t do anything like that”.

Röttgen also criticized the decision to withdraw. One should have negotiated with the Taliban under the premise: “We are here, and we are ready to stay here until there is an agreement and a stable government”. This was the only way to have a lever to achieve something.

Röttgen also described the situation in Afghanistan as a “dramatic pile of broken glass”. “It is a human drama and a catastrophe, it is a political catastrophe, it is a moral failure of the West,” he said before a special session of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundestag, of which he is chairman.

The geostrategic effects are not yet clear. “It is a turning point that we are experiencing, which seizes and affects everything – from the individually human to the world situation,” said Röttgen.

Röttgen made it clear that Germany is now fully dependent on the benevolence of the militant Islamist Taliban for the evacuation of German citizens and Afghan local staff. “The Taliban are now in power in the country,” he said. “Everything that takes place there takes place because the Taliban still tolerate it. And only if the Taliban tolerate it. ”He does not see what pressure the West could use in talks with the Islamists. “That is one of the changes that has taken place: that we must now ask that salvation remains possible and how long it remains possible. Everything is now in the hands of the Taliban. “

Now is not the time for party-political blame, said the CDU politician, referring to the opposition’s criticism of the federal government. “It will all come, it will all be worked through,” he assured me. At the meeting, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) briefed the MPs on the current situation in Kabul and the evacuation of German citizens and Afghan aid workers.

Opposition calls for resignations

In view of the chaos in the rescue of German and local workers from Afghanistan, Green leader Robert Habeck has demanded a complete clarification of the mistakes made. “The statements of the federal government that nobody warned about the situation arouse serious doubts,” said Habeck of the “Rheinische Post”. In addition to Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and the ministries for foreign affairs and defense are responsible.

For the takeover of power by the Taliban “one could and should have prepared oneself”, even if the speed could not have been foreseen, criticized the Greens co-chairman. He pointed out that the Greens had already pushed for easier admission of Afghan local staff in the Bundestag in June, which was rejected by the Union and the SPD at the time. Foreign Minister Maas did not even take warnings from his own embassy staff in Kabul seriously.

The former Green chairman Cem Özdemir also attacked Maas sharply. Özdemir said on Deutschlandfunk that he was responsible for “the greatest foreign policy disaster since the Federal Republic of Germany came into existence”. Germany is now abandoning people in Afghanistan who would have risked their lives as local personnel for the Bundeswehr. In addition, the question arises what the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) has actually done in the past weeks and months.

Left-wing politician Gregor Gysi called for the resignation of the entire federal government. “The whole thing is disastrous,” he told the MDR. Gysi also accused the government of serious omissions and could have brought the embassy staff and the armed forces back in April.

FDP Vice-President Wolfgang Kubicki also called for the resignation of at least the responsible ministers. “Both the Chancellor, Defense Minister Kramp-Karrenbauer and, above all, Heiko Maas are responsible for the biggest foreign policy disaster in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. We have never been governed worse, “said Kubicki of the” Rheinische Post “. Resigning would be an important symbolic act to demonstrate that one still accepts responsibility in the highest political offices.

The German government had hesitated for a long time with a rescue operation for Germans still in Kabul and for Afghan local forces in the Bundeswehr, as well as other Afghans threatened by the Taliban’s takeover. It was not until Monday that a chaotic operation began to bring people to safety from Kabul Airport. However, the airport is barely accessible, especially for Afghan local workers or representatives of civil society, because of the Taliban checkpoints at the driveways. (dpa, AFP)