Boris Johnson has called on countries not to recognise the Taliban as a legitimate government without international agreement, as he announced parliament would be recalled on Wednesday to discuss the situation in Afghanistan. After a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee, the prime minister suggested the Taliban takeover had been all but inevitable, describing it as the “chronicle of an event foretold” and “clearly a change of regime”. He said the best way forward would be international diplomacy through the UN and Nato to prevent Afghanistan becoming “a breeding ground for terror”, and that the UK was doing everything possible to evacuate British nationals.
“We don’t want anybody to bilaterally recognise the Taliban. We want a united position among all the like-minded, as far as we can get one, so that we do whatever we can to prevent Afghanistan lapsing back into a breeding ground for terror,” he said in a broadcast interview. He said any new government should not be approved without the world “forming a common view and setting the same conditions” about how it should act. “Of course it’s not just about terrorism, it’s about human rights and many other things,” he said. Johnson had insisted in parliament just last month that there was “no military path to victory for the Taliban”. “I do not believe that the Taliban are guaranteed the kind of victory that we sometimes read about,” he said. Following pressure from opposition parties, the prime minister also said he would summon MPs back to Westminster from their summer break for a day on Wednesday, after the Taliban entered the outskirts of Kabul. The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, was returning from a holiday abroad on Sunday, after criticism that he had failed to speak up on the growing crisis for more than a week. George Robertson, the Labour peer, former defence secretary and Nato general secretary at the time of 9/11, said it was “stunning that the foreign secretary would stay on holiday as our mission in Afghanistan disintegrated”. “The horrors unfolding with every minute demand focused attention from the top,” he said. “The urgency involves both the evacuation of British citizens but also what is now to happen to the people of Afghanistan.”
Raab tweeted on Sunday afternoon that he had “shared deep concerns about the future for Afghanistan” with Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi. He said they “agreed it is critical that the international community is united in telling the Taliban that the violence must end and human rights must be protected”. A Commons spokesperson said the Speaker had granted a request from the government for a recall to take place from 9.30am to 2.30pm on Wednesday “in relation to the situation in Afghanistan”. MPs will be expected to attend in person as provisions for virtual proceedings have lapsed, despite Johnson’s claims that MPs on holiday would be able to “Zoom” in. The Lords will also return from 11am on Wednesday, but some peers attending the debate remotely. Johnson was expected to be on holiday this weekend but he chaired his a second Cobra meeting on Afghanistan in three days on Sunday afternoon. He also spoke to Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, and the UN secretary general, António Guterres, about the Taliban takeover, calling for meetings as soon as possible of the North Atlantic council and UN security council. Ahead of the parliamentary debate, Labour urged the government to “live up to our obligations” to the Afghan people. The shadow home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, also called for safe and legal asylum routes to be put in place.
Asked on Sky News whether the UK would match Canada’s promise to take in 20,000 refuges, Johnson said: “We’ve already received 2,000 Afghan nationals and we can be pleased with that as good way-marker and I imagine there will be more to come.” The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, had earlier pressed the prime minister to update MPs on how the government “plans to work with allies to avoid a humanitarian crisis and a return to the days of Afghanistan being a base for extremists whose purpose will be to threaten our interests, values and national security”. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said the UK ambassador to Kabul remained in the country, despite reports that he was to be airlifted out on Sunday night. “We have reduced our diplomatic presence in response to the situation on the ground, but our ambassador remains in Kabul and UK government staff continue to work to provide assistance to British nationals and to our Afghan staff,” a government spokesperson said. “We are doing all we can to enable remaining British nationals, who want to leave Afghanistan, to do so.”
After the first Cobra meeting on the situation on Friday, Johnson said there was no military option for the UK in Afghanistan and that he wanted to use diplomatic leverage. He insisted that the UK’s 20-year military presence in Afghanistan had not been in vain, claiming the threat of al-Qaida had been greatly reduced. Some MPs and international observers, however, have called on him to do more and to consider a global alliance to reverse the rise of the Taliban, because of their history of oppressing women and girls, links to terrorist groups and religious extremism. The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, wrote to Johnson on Sunday, saying: “It is without doubt that we face a crucial point in history and, as a nation, we must act together before it is too late. “Given the tragedy unfolding before our eyes and the grave threat to national security this raises, I urge you to invite all Westminster party leaders from across the UK to meet with you to discuss our nation’s response to this crisis. It is also right that parliament is recalled as soon as possible to discuss the UK’s response.
“The UK has a responsibility to the people of Afghanistan and to the international community. Now is the time to act – to do the right thing, and bring political parties together in our national interest.” Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, said the withdrawal from Afghanistan the “biggest single disaster of foreign policy since Suez”. He told the BBC’s Broadcasting House programme it was extraordinary that the UK’s focus had been on minor negotiations with Nato and Europe instead of the lives of 28 million Afghans. He also said it appeared “our foreign policy is now entirely decided by Washington”. Rory Stewart, the former development secretary, who has lived and travelled extensively in Afghanistan, told the same programme it was “monumental” that Kabul was being threatened by the Taliban, saying the UK should remember it was a “group with the most horrific dark and unpleasant history”.