Good afternoon. I’d like to give you all an update
on the situation in Afghanistan and our ongoing efforts there, particularly as
they relate to U.S. citizens, and then I’m very happy to take -- take your questions.
Let me begin with my profound appreciation for our diplomats and service members
who are working around the clock at the airport in Kabul and at a growing number
of transit sites to facilitate the evacuation of Americans, their families,
citizens of allied and partner nations, Afghans who have partnered with us over
the last 20 years, and other Afghans at risk. They are undertaking this mission
under extremely difficult circumstances, with incredible courage, skill, and
humanity.
Since August 14th, more than 82,300 people have been safely flown out of Kabul.
In the 24-hour period from Tuesday to Wednesday, approximately 19,000 people
were evacuated on 90 U.S. military and coalition flights. Only the United States
could organize and execute a mission of this scale and this complexity.
As the President has made clear, our first priority is the evacuation of
American citizens. Since August 14th, we have evacuated at least 4,500 U.S.
citizens and likely more. More than 500 of those Americans were evacuated in
just the last day alone.
Now, many of you have asked how many U.S. citizens remain in Afghanistan who
want to leave the country. Based on our analysis, starting on August 14 when our
evacuation operations began, there was then a population of as many as 6,000
American citizens in Afghanistan who wanted to leave. Over the last 10 days,
roughly 4,500 of these Americans have been safely evacuated along with immediate
family members. Over the past 24 hours, we’ve been in direct contact with
approximately 500 additional Americans and provided specific instructions on how
to get to the airport safely. We will update you regularly on our progress in
getting these 500 American citizens out of Afghanistan.
For the remaining roughly 1,000 contacts that we had who may be Americans
seeking to leave Afghanistan, we are aggressively reaching out to them multiple
times a day through multiple channels of communication -- phone, email, text
messaging -- to determine whether they still want to leave and to get the most
up-to-date information and instructions to them for how to do so. Some may no
longer be in the country. Some may have claimed to be Americans but turn out not
to be. Some may choose to stay. We’ll continue to try to identify the status and
plans of these people in the coming days.
Thus, from this list of approximately 1,000, we believe the number of Americans
actively seeking assistance to leave Afghanistan is lower, likely significantly
lower.
Having said that, these are dynamic calculations that we are working hour by
hour to refine for accuracy. And let me, if I can, just take a moment to explain
why the numbers are difficult to pin down with absolute precision at any given
moment. And let me start with Americans who are in Afghanistan and we believe
want to leave.
First, as I think all of you know, the U.S. Government does not track Americans’
movements when they travel around the world. When Americans visit a foreign
country or if they reside there, we encourage them to enroll with the U.S.
embassy. Whether they do or not is up to them; it’s voluntary. And then, when
Americans leave a foreign country, it’s also up to them to de-enroll. Again,
that’s a choice, not a requirement.
Particularly given the security situation in Afghanistan, for many years we have
urged Americans not to travel there. We’ve repeatedly asked Americans who are in
Afghanistan to enroll. And since March of this year, we’ve sent 19 separate
messages to Americans enrolled with the embassy in Kabul, encouraging and then
urging them to leave the country. We’ve amplified those direct messages on the
State Department website and on social media. We even made clear that we would
help pay for their repatriation, and we’ve provided multiple communication
channels for Americans to contact us if they’re in Afghanistan and want help in
leaving.
The specific estimated number of Americans in Afghanistan who want to leave can
go up as people respond to our outreach for the first time, and it can go down
when we reach Americans we thought were in Afghanistan who tell us they’ve
already left. There could be other Americans in Afghanistan who never enrolled
with the embassy, who ignored public evacuation notices, and have not yet
identified themselves to us.
We’ve also found that many people who contact us and identify themselves as
American citizens, including by filling out and submitting repatriation
assistance forms, are not, in fact, U.S. citizens -- something that can take some
time to verify. Some Americans may choose to stay in Afghanistan -- some who are
enrolled, and some who are not. Many of them are dual nationals who may consider
Afghanistan their home, who’ve lived there for decades, or who want to stay
close to extended family. And there are Americans who are still evaluating their
decision to leave based on the situation on the ground that evolves daily -- in
fact, that evolves hourly.
Some are understandably very scared. Each has a set of personal priorities and
considerations that they alone can weigh. They may even change their mind from
one day to the next, as has happened and will likely continue to happen.
Finally, over the past 10 days we’ve been moving hundreds of American citizens
out of Afghanistan every day, in most cases guided to the airport by us, in some
cases getting there on their own, in other cases with the help of third
countries or private initiatives. We cross-check our list against flight
manifests, against arrival records, against other databases. There’s usually a
lag of about 24 hours for us to verify their status. So when you take into
account all of these inputs that we use to arrive at our assessment of the
number of Americans still in Afghanistan and who want to leave, you start to
understand why this is a hard number to pin down at any given moment and why
we’re constantly refining it.
And that’s also why we continue to be relentless in our outreach. Since August
14th, we’ve reached out directly to every American enrolled with us in
Afghanistan, often multiple times. Hundreds of consular officers, locally
employed staff, here in Washington, at dozens of embassies and consulates around
the world, are part of what has been an unprecedented operation. They’re phone
banking, text banking, writing and responding to emails, working around the
clock to communicate individually with Americans on the ground.
Since August 14th, we’ve sent more than 20,000 emails to enrolled individuals,
initiated more than 45,000 phone calls, and used other means of communication,
cycling through and updating our list repeatedly. We’re also integrating
information in real time that’s provided to us by members of Congress, by
nongovernmental organizations, and U.S. citizens about Americans who may be in
Afghanistan and want to get out.
These contacts are how we determine the whereabouts of Americans who may be in
Afghanistan, whether they want to leave, whether they need help, and then to
give them specific, tailored instructions on how to leave with real-time
emergency contact numbers to use should they need it.
Now, let me turn to the number of Americans who have been evacuated. As I said,
we believe we’ve evacuated more than 4,500 U.S. passport holders as well as
their families. That number is also a dynamic one. That’s because in this
critical stretch, we’re focused on getting Americans and their families onto
planes, out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible and then processing the total
numbers when they’re safely out of the country. We also verify our numbers to
make sure that we aren’t inadvertently undercounting or double counting.
So I wanted to lay all that out because I know it is a fundamental question that
so many of you have had, and it really merits going through the information, the
explanation so you see how we arrive at it.
While evacuating Americans is our top priority, we’re also committed to getting
out as many Afghans at risk as we can before the 31st. That starts with our
locally employed staff, the folks who’ve been working side by side in our
embassy with our diplomatic team. And it includes Special Immigrant Visa program
participants and also other Afghans at risk. It’s hard to overstate the
complexity and the danger of this effort. We’re operating in a hostile
environment in a city and country now controlled by the Taliban, with the very
real possibility of an ISIS-K attack. We’re taking every precaution, but this is
very high-risk.
As the
President said yesterday, we’re on track to complete our mission by
August 31st provided the Taliban continue to cooperate and there are no
disruptions to this effort. The President has also asked for contingency plans
in case he determines that we must remain in the country past that date. But let
me be crystal-clear about this: There is no deadline on our work to help any
remaining American citizens who decide they want to leave to do so, along with
the many Afghans who have stood by us over these many years and want to leave
and have been unable to do so. That effort will continue every day past August
31st.
The Taliban have made public and private commitments to provide and permit safe
passage for Americans, for third-country nationals, and Afghans at risk going
forward past August 31st. The United States, our allies and partners, and more
than half of the world’s countries -- 114 in all -- issued a statement making it
clear to the Taliban that they have a responsibility to hold to that commitment
and provide safe passage for anyone who wishes to leave the country -- not just
for the duration of our evacuation and relocation mission, but for every day
thereafter.
And we’re developing detailed plans for how we can continue to provide consular
support and facilitate departures for whose who wish to leave after August 31st.
Our expectation -- the expectation of the international community -- is that
people who want to leave Afghanistan after the U.S. military departs should be
able to do so. Together we will do everything we can to see that that
expectation is met.
Let me just close with a note on the diplomatic front. In all, more than two
dozen countries on four continents are contributing to the effort to transit,
temporarily house, or resettle those who we are evacuating. That didn’t just
happen. It’s the product of an intense diplomatic effort to secure, detail, and
implement transit agreements and resettlement commitments. We are deeply
grateful to those countries for their generous assistance.
This is one of the largest airlifts in history, a massive military, diplomatic,
security, and humanitarian undertaking. It’s a testament both to U.S. leadership
and to the strength of our alliances and partnerships. We’ll be relying and
building upon that strength moving forward as we work with our allies and
partners to forge a unified diplomatic approach to Afghanistan. That was a point
the President underscored in yesterday’s G7 leaders’ meeting on Afghanistan and
it’s one that I and other senior members of the State Department have made in
our constant communication with allies and partners in recent days to ensure
that we’re aligned and united as we move forward -- not only when it comes to the
immediate mission, but also on what happens after August 31st on
counterterrorism, on humanitarian assistance, on our expectations of a future
Afghan government. That intense diplomatic work is ongoing as we speak and it
will continue in the days and weeks ahead.
So I talked a lot about numbers this afternoon, but even as we’re laser-focused
on the mission, we know that this is about real people, many scared, many
desperate. I’ve seen the images, I’ve read the stories, I’ve heard the voices,
so much of that reported by you and your colleagues so courageously. Like many
of you, I read the report of the Afghan translator whose two-year-old daughter
was trampled to death on Saturday while waiting outside the airport. I’ve got
two small kids of my own. Reading that story and others was like getting punched
in the gut.
All of us at the State Department and across the U.S. Government feel that way.
We know that lives and futures, starting with our fellow citizens -- including
the lives of children -- hang in the balance during these critical days. And
that’s why everyone on our team is putting everything they have into this
effort. Thanks very much, and happy to take questions.
Mr. Price: Matt.
Question:
Thanks. Thanks, Mr. Secretary, for coming down and doing this. On your -- Two things really briefly. I’ll try to be as brief as possible. Two things. On
your numbers of the American citizens, does that include green card holders, LPRs? And if it doesn’t or does --
SecState Blinken: No, it does not. Let me clear, it does not.
Question: Oh, it does not. Okay. Is there a way to get the number?
SecState Blinken: These are blue passport holders.
Question: Okay. But have LPRs also been contacted?
SecState Blinken: Yep.
Question: And what about SIV applicants, people who are eligible?
SecState Blinken: We are in contact with --
Question: So we can get numbers for those even if you don’t --
SecState Blinken: -- all of the different --
Question: And then --
SecState Blinken: Go ahead. I’m sorry, Matt.
Question: It’s okay. I don’t expect you to have all of the numbers. But then
since this whole thing began there’s been a lot of criticism of the
administration over how it handled it, and there’s been a lot of pushback from
people within the administration about the hand that you were basically dealt or
what you say you were dealt by the previous administration in terms of the deal
with the Taliban, in terms of the SIV program, in terms of the broader refugee
program. But you guys have been in office for almost eight months. It’s been
five months since the President’s decision was made. Is there anything about the
shortcomings that have been so readily identified by all sorts of people that
you guys are actually willing to take responsibility for yourselves?
SecState Blinken: Thanks, Matt. Let me say two things. First, with regard to
the numbers and these different categories, as you’ve seen by how I’ve laid out
how we get to the numbers of Americans, this is both incredibly complicated and
incredibly fluid. Any number I give you right now is likely to be out of date by
the time we leave this briefing room. So what we’re doing is very carefully
tabulating everything we have, cross-checking it, referencing it, using
different databases. We will have numbers for all those different categories in
the days ahead and after this initial phase of efforts to bring people out of
Afghanistan ends.
And with regard to the second part of your question, about taking
responsibility: I take responsibility, I know the President has said he takes
responsibility, and I know all of my colleagues across government feel the same
way. And I can tell you that there will be plenty of time to look back at the
last six or seven months, to look back at the last 20 years, and to look to see
what we might have done differently, what we might have done sooner, what we
might have done more effectively. But I have to tell you that right now, my
entire focus is on the mission at hand. And there’s going to be, as I said,
plenty of time to do an accounting of this when we get through that mission.
Mr. Price: Lara.
Question: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Could you speak today about the future of
the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, whether it will remain or American diplomats will
remain in Kabul after the military withdrawal on the 31st? And also more
broadly, we’re already seeing women being repressed in Afghanistan by the
Taliban, people being attacked, intimidated, being kept from getting to the
airport. I’m wondering if you can give us any concrete examples of steps that
the United States is going to take to assure SIV applicants and other high-value
-- or I’m sorry, high-target, high-risk Afghans, that they’re not going to be
forgotten when the United States military leaves.
SecState Blinken: With regard to our diplomatic engagement, we’re looking at a
series of options, and I’m sure we’ll have more on that in the coming days and
weeks, but we’re looking at a variety of options. And as I said earlier,
particularly because the effort to bring out of Afghanistan those who want to
leave does not end with the military evacuation plan on the 31st, we are very
focused on what we need to do to facilitate the further departure of people who
wish to leave Afghanistan, and that is primarily going to be a diplomatic
effort, a consular effort, an international effort because other countries feel
exactly the same way.
And I’m sorry, the second part of your question?
Question: Just if there are any concrete steps --
SecState Blinken: Oh, yes, I’m sorry.
Question: -- that you can give to people who are very worried right now,
understandably, about whether they’re just going to be forgotten, left behind,
disappeared once the United States withdraws its military and can no longer
protect their safe passage to the airport or their other livelihoods.
SecState Blinken: The short answer is no, they will not be forgotten. And as I
said, we will use every diplomatic, economic assistance tool at our disposal
working hand-in-hand with the international community, first and foremost to
ensure that those who want to leave Afghanistan after the 31st are able to do
so, as well as to deal with other issues that we need to be focused on,
including counterterrorism and humanitarian assistance, and expectations of a
future Afghan government.
I mentioned a few moments ago that we got 114 countries around the world to make
clear to the Taliban the international expectation that people will continue to
be able to leave the country after the military evacuation effort ends. And we
certainly have points of incentive and points of leverage with a future Afghan
government to help make sure that that happens. But I can tell you again -- from
my perspective, from the President’s perspective -- this effort does not end on
August 31st. It will continue for as long as it takes to help get people out of
Afghanistan who wish to leave.
Question: What’s your level of confidence today that the Taliban will actually
abide by some of these requirements and expectations that the international
community has put on it?
SecState Blinken: I’m not going to put a percentage on it. I can just tell you
again that the Taliban has made their own commitments. They’ve made them
publicly. They’ve made them privately. And again, I think they have a very
strong self-interest in acting with a modicum of responsibility going forward.
But they will make their own determinations.
Mr. Price: Andrea.
SecState Blinken: Andrea.
Question: Mr. Secretary, thank you. But the Taliban right now, focusing on the
mission right now, are not living up to their commitments. People are being
stopped trying to get into the airport. I’m talking about women, SIVs, others --
Afghans, people with papers -- and they’re being stopped outside the airport now.
There are total bottlenecks which seem to rise to the level of what the
President said were the contingency -- contingencies if the Taliban is not
complying, if the flow can’t continue. We’re loading planes, but some planes are
leaving without -- and some people are people who have private planes waiting for
them with landing rights but can’t get into the airport. As well as beyond the SIVs there are lawyers, there are judges, women lawyers, judges, educators
--
we’ve told them for 20 years you can live up to your potential, and now they
feel abandoned.
And then finally, I’d like to ask you about the local hires. We evacuated our
embassy, and there have been cables back that I know you must be familiar with
or your teams are of people who feel completely betrayed. And these are
thousands of people that we rely on in embassies all -- embassies around the
world. The message is going forward that we will not be loyal. They were not
told about the evacuation. They were not put on those choppers with our American
staff. And they were forced -- many of them -- to find their own way through the
Taliban checkpoints and then get turned away at the airport, and some even got
turned away once they were inside.
So what is the message to people working for the U.S. Government? Veterans’
groups are angry about the SIVs, and then there are all the millions of Afghan
women who have told their daughters and been raised under this promise of a
future which the Taliban are already, according to Ambassador Verveer today, is
-- are denying. There are horrifying examples from provinces and from inside
Kabul of people being targeted door to door, people in safe houses being sought
out. And all this promise of you will be safe -- the Taliban spokesman said stay
in your homes because we haven’t told all of our people how to treat women, how
to respect women. They also say you can go to school, you can work, as long as
you comply with Sharia law, which, under their interpretation, is the most
extreme example of the Islamic code that is seen anywhere in the world.
SecState Blinken: Andrea, a few things. First, of the 82,000-plus people who so
far have been evacuated, about 45, 46 percent have been women and children, and
we’ve been intensely focused particularly on making sure that we can get women
at risk out of harm’s way.
Second, with regard to women and other Afghans at risk going forward, we will
use, I will use, every diplomatic, economic, political, and assistance tool at
my disposal, working closely with allies and partners who feel very much the
same way, to do everything possible to uphold their basic rights. And that’s
going to be a relentless focus of our actions going forward.
Locally employed staff -- along with American citizens, nothing is more important
to me as Secretary of State than to do right by the people who have been working
side-by-side with American diplomats in our embassy. And I can tell you, Andrea,
that we are relentlessly focused on getting the locally employed staff out of
Afghanistan and out of harm’s way. And let me leave it at that for now.
Mr. Price: Rosiland.
Question: Mr. Secretary, thank you. I wanted to ask a more fundamental question
about the Taliban. Your spokesperson indicated in recent days that de facto the
Taliban are in charge in Kabul, but there is no legal recognized government by
the United States at this moment. And it kind of begs the Question: Why does the
United States even have to pay attention to what the Taliban wants? It’s an SDGT;
it’s sanctioned by many organizations. It’s already losing access to Afghan
government resources because of its past and current behavior. Why should the
United States even care what the Taliban wants to be done at the airport or,
frankly, anywhere else in the country since they are not, in the U.S.’s eyes, a
legally recognized government? Thank you.
SecState Blinken: Thank you. Thank you. Our focus right now is on getting our
citizens and getting other -- our partners -- Afghan partners, third-country
partners who have been working in Afghanistan with us -- out of the country and
to safety. And for that purpose, first, the Taliban, whether we like it or not,
is in control -- largely in control of the country, certainly in control of the
city of Kabul. And it’s been important to work with them to try to facilitate
and ensure the departure of all those who want to leave, and that has actually
been something that we’ve been focused on for -- from the beginning of this
operation, because as a practical matter it advances our interests.
Second, we’ve been engaged with the Taliban for some time diplomatically going
back years in efforts, as you know, to try to advance a peaceful settlement of
the conflict in Afghanistan. There’s still talks and conversations underway even
now between the Taliban and former members of the Afghan government with regard,
for example, to a transfer of power and some inclusivity in a future government.
And I think it’s in our interest where possible to support those efforts.
Going forward, we will judge our engagement with any Taliban-led government in
Afghanistan based on one simple proposition: our interests, and does it help us
advance them or not. If engagement with the government can advance the enduring
interests we will have in counterterrorism, the enduring interest we’ll have in
trying to help the Afghan people who need humanitarian assistance, in the
enduring interest we have in seeing that the rights of all Afghans, especially
women and girls, are upheld, then we’ll do it.
But fundamentally, the nature of that engagement and the nature of any
relationship depends entirely on the actions and conduct of the Taliban. If a
future government upholds the basic rights of the Afghan people, if it makes
good on its commitments to ensure that Afghanistan cannot be used as a launching
pad for terrorist attacks directed against us and our allies and partners, and
in the first instance, if it makes good on its commitments to allow people who
want to leave Afghanistan to leave, that’s a government we can work with. If it
doesn’t, we will make sure that we use every appropriate tool at our disposal to
isolate that government, and as I said before, Afghanistan will be a pariah.
Mr. Price: Francesco.
Question: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. What will happen on September 1st? Will the
U.S. keep any diplomatic and/or any other kind of presence in Kabul at all, and
who will run the airport? Is there any progress in the discussions with the
Turks -- who announced their withdrawal, their military withdrawal -- with the Qataris, and with the Taliban on the airport?
SecState Blinken: Thanks. There are very active efforts on the way
-- underway
on the part of regional countries to see whether they can play a role in keeping
the airport open once our military mission leaves or, as necessary, reopening it
if it closes for some period of time. And that’s happening very actively right
now. The Taliban have made clear that they have a strong interest in having a
functioning airport. We and the rest of the international community certainly
have a strong interest in that, primarily for the purpose of making sure that
anyone who wants to leave can leave past the 31st using an airport. And so
that’s a very active effort that’s underway as we speak. And again, with regard
to our own potential presence going forward after the 31st, we’re looking at a
number of options.
