WASHINGTON, 9 September 2021, (TON): Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has said that I just want to say to all of our colleagues thank you so much for the remarkable contributions that Germany’s made to our shared mission in Afghanistan over the last 20 years, but also over the last days, particularly the ongoing evacuation effort here at Ramstein Air Base where we are both located.

Blinken added that just before arriving here in Germany, I was in Doha; I had a chance to meet with our friend, Foreign Minister Al Thani, and the emir as well and to thank them personally for Qatar’s remarkable partnership with all of us and particularly in allowing the transit of more than 58,000 people evacuated from Afghanistan, including Americans, including our locally employed staff, including Afghans at risk, and of course including citizens from many of the countries represented here.

For the time being, like many countries here, we are managing our diplomacy with Afghanistan from Doha, and so we’re also grateful to our friends for allowing us to do that.

We thought it would be a good idea to get together today to do two things. First, to thank you for the ongoing and extraordinary cooperation in this effort. The evacuation that concluded on August 30 was, I think as everyone knows, a massively complex military, diplomatic, humanitarian undertaking. And like our efforts in Afghanistan over the previous two decades, it was a truly joint enterprise, almost in this case a global endeavor. Many of you were partners in the airlift working side-by-side with our team in Kabul at the airport. Many are now serving as transit countries. We’re helping with overland efforts. Others have agreed to resettle Afghan refugees permanently, and we hope more will do the same. Indeed, every country and institution represented here today is a partner in this ongoing effort, and we are truly grateful for that.

It’s also, I think in our judgment, the way we need to approach the way forward in Afghanistan. And so what I just wanted to do quickly today before turning it over to Heiko and then turning it over to everyone else is to just highlight three areas where our alignment and our cooperation would be especially important.

A second point for emphasis “the Taliban’s also committed to preventing terrorist groups from using Afghanistan as a base for external operations that could threaten any of us, a pledge they have since extended not just to us but to all other countries. Here, too, we need to hold them accountable to that commitment.”

Of course, we can’t just rely on the Taliban to meet these commitments. The horrific attack that carried out on August 26th, which killed 13 United States service members and many, many Afghans, did show the serious threat that these groups continue to play inside Afghanistan.

All of us have to remain vigilant and monitor threats, especially any reemergence of externally directed plotting, and address them swiftly when they arise. As President Biden has made clear, the United States will maintain robust counterterrorism capabilities in the region to neutralize any threats, and we won’t hesitate to use those capabilities if we have to do so.

The third point is this humanitarian aid and assistance and the need to continue to make them available to the people of Afghanistan.

We’re determined to continue that lifesaving assistance in a way that’s consistent with our sanctions obligations. The ministerial that Secretary-General Guterres is convening on is an opportunity for countries to step up to meet the Afghans’ urgent needs while also reminding the Taliban of its obligation to allow safe, unhindered access for humanitarian groups and to protect those groups as they’re doing their work.

It’s in the interest of all of our countries to avoid a bigger humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and the greater suffering and instability that that would produce.