Berlin – The party chairman and CDU chancellor candidate Armin Laschet has called for Bundeswehr soldiers to return to Afghanistan in order to organize the safe departure of local forces. “We need a new mandate from the Bundestag,” said Laschet in a speech at the 100th state parliament of the Junge Union Hessen. For months, the Foreign Office has been looking “back and forth” as to how the departure of the former Afghan employees could be managed. “That doesn’t help now, the Bundeswehr has to help these people.”
The Bundeswehr has withdrawn its forces from Afghanistan. Should units return there, this would have to be decided by parliament. The Bundestag will hold a special session in August to decide, among other things, on flood aid.
The US has now relocated around 3,000 soldiers back to Afghanistan. They are supposed to secure the withdrawal of the American embassy staff. The staff in the German embassy in Kabul is also to be drastically reduced. The troops of the Islamist Taliban are conquering ever larger parts of the country – at a pace that has apparently taken the politicians in Germany by surprise.
The Bundeswehr has started preparations for a heavily secured mission to evacuate German citizens and local staff from Afghanistan. According to information from the German Press Agency, a mandate to be passed by the Bundestag is being prepared, for which military experts in particular have been pushing in the past few days.
.