WASHINGTON, 16 August 2021, (TON): US Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected widespread comparisons between ongoing American withdrawal from Afghanistan and its hurried exit from Vietnam almost half a century ago.

After the Taliban moved further into the Afghan capital, American diplomats were evacuated from their embassy in the fortified Wazir Akbar Khan district by helicopter to the airport as local Afghan forces, trained for years and equipped by the United States and others for billions of dollars, melted away.

Images of American helicopters shuttling back and forth led some to compare the situation to US's desperate exit from Saigon, Vietnam in 1975.

Back in Washington, when asked if images of helicopters ferrying personnel to Kabul airport were evocative of its retreat from Vietnam, Blinken told media: "Let's take a step back. This is manifestly not Saigon."

Blinken's comments come days after US President Joe Biden had not only rejected any similarities between the two withdrawals but also all but shut the door of any hasty departures.

Biden said in a press conference "there’s going to be no circumstance when you’re going to see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy of the United States from Afghanistan."