Biden reiterates the deadline of August 31 for the withdrawal. Johnson takes his side and announces a shared road map on future engagement with the Taliban and focuses on the UN Security Council. Draghi, on the other hand, is betting on the meeting of the Winds to involve, in addition to Russia and China, also Saudi Arabia, Turkey and India
The US president Joe Biden it resisted pressure from the G7, confirming to the allies, during an extraordinary meeting of the Seven under the UK presidency, that the definitive withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan will take place on 31 August. However, after pressure from allies, the US president asked the Pentagon to prepare contingency plans in case it was necessary to stay longer in Kabul.
And, as the Foreign Minister explained Luigi Di Maio in hearing the joint Foreign and Defense committees of the House and Senate, without the Americans, who guarantee the safety of evacuation operations with the British, it is “technically impossible” to stay for other countries, including Italy.
To support the choice of the White House during the meeting – which also involved the NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg and that of the United Nations Antonio Guterres – the landlord, the British Prime Minister, has lined up Boris Johnson, who explained that the Seven agreed on one road map for future engagement with the Taliban and who will insist on the “safe passage” of people who want to leave Afghanistan even after 31 August. His defense minister, Ben Wallace, had reiterated a few hours before the G7 summit that, given that the Taliban could forcibly close the Kabul airport if the deadline, “The goal is to get as many people out every hour”.
According to sources from Palazzo Chigi, the Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, explained during the meeting that the goal is to be able to safely conclude the evacuation operations by the end of August. Furthermore, he stressed the need to “maintain a contact channel even after the deadline of 31 August and the possibility of transiting Afghanistan safely”.
President Draghi also declared that he was convinced that “the G7 must show itself united also in opening relations with other countries. In this, the G20 can help the G7 in involving other countries that are very important because they have the ability to control what is happening in Afghanistan: Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and India ”. Words similar to those spoken in parliament by Minister Di Maio: “We will have to find alliances and involve all the actors, especially those in the region, who share this same concern, as well as Russia and China”
Both the United Kingdom, the current president of the G7, and Italy, which leads the G20, are focusing on the involvement of Russia and China, key players in the Asian chessboard. But while London is working with Paris on a resolution to be presented to the United Nations Security Council that can also find the support of Moscow and Beijing (the other two permanent members, in addition to Washington), Rome aims to organize a summit of leaders dei Venti dedicated exclusively to Afghanistan already in September, the first of the final one in October, underlining, as the words of President Draghi at the G7 demonstrate, the role of G20 countries such as Saudi Arabia, India and Turkey in regional dynamics.
Of this, the president Draghi spoke on the phone with the Russian president Vladimir Putin and should soon discuss hear the Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Minister Di Maio has also moved, who has addressed the issue in recent days by telephone with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi; and will face it on Friday at the Farnesina with the Russian one, Sergei Lavrov.
There are obstacles in the schemes of both European capitals: the London maneuvers could end up isolating Washington, while the rumored absence of Xi at the summit of the Twenty in Rome in October feeds the suspicions that even in Afghanistan it will not be easy to involve China in the context of the G20. Without forgetting the declarations with which Chinese diplomacy rejected the British proposal for sanctions against the Taliban.
Both schemes, however, highlight two elements. The first: the Western powers recognize the role that Russia and China have and will have even more in Afghanistan. The second: without a constructive confrontation, the Seven risk appearing broken up in any larger venue, thus offering the side to Moscow and Beijing, which already in the aftermath of the fall of Kabul into the hands of the Taliban were riding the US and Western withdrawal from Afghanistan. portraying it as a failure of the democratic model.
(Photo: Twitter, @JensStoltenberg)