[Rwanda Forum] U.S. Asks Taliban to Spare Its Kabul Embassy in Coming Fight for Capital - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/us/politics/taliban-afghanistan-us-embassy.html

U.S. Asks Taliban to Spare Its Embassy in Coming Fight for Kabul

The demand seeks to stave off an evacuation of the embassy by dangling aid to future Afghan governments — even one that includes the Taliban.

Published Aug. 12, 2021Updated Aug. 13, 2021, 6:38 a.m. ET

Starting in April, the United States Embassy in Afghanistan began sending home nonessential employees as security became more untenable in Kabul.Reuters

WASHINGTON — American negotiators are trying to extract assurances from the Taliban that they will not attack the U.S. Embassy in Kabul if the extremist group takes over the country's government and ever wants to receive foreign aid, three American officials said.

The effort, led by Zalmay Khalilzad, the chief American envoy in talks with the Taliban, seeks to stave off a full evacuation of the embassy as they rapidly seize cities across Afghanistan. On Thursday, the State Department announced it was sending home an unspecified number of the 1,400 Americans stationed at the embassy and drawing down to what the agency's spokesman, Ned Price, described as a "core diplomatic presence" in Kabul.

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"Hate Cannot Drive Out Hate. Only Love Can Do That", Dr. Martin Luther King.

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