“Director Stanekzai assured me that Afghans with legal documents will continue to have the opportunity to travel on commercial flights after August 31,” Ambassador Markus Potzel, who is negotiating with the Taliban in Doha, said on Twitter.

The former German envoy to Kabul was referring to the head of the Taliban’s political office in Doha, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, whom he met for talks on Tuesday as Western governments scramble to evacuate citizens and Afghan staff from Kabul.

“We talked about the urgent need for a functioning airport in Kabul as a prerequisite for a diplomatic & NGO presence” in Afghanistan, Potzel, who has been negotiating with the Taliban extensively in the past, added.

Potzel noted that Germany has pledged to increase humanitarian aid for the Afghan people by 100 million euros but added that the “resumption of development cooperation will be dependent on conditions”, as had been the case with the Afghan government in the past.

Caption: In the picture taken on August 13, 2021, Taliban fighters are pictured in a vehicle along the roadside in Herat, Afghanistan’s third biggest city, after government forces pulled out the day before following weeks of being under siege. (Photo by – / AFP)

REUTERS