G7 summit: Biden refuses deadline extension

G7 leaders put on a united front after today’s emergency Afghanistan summit, but the bleak reality is that the Taliban still hold most of the cards, writes Olivia Gavoyannis.

The White House released a statement about “close coordination”, while Boris Johnson announced that leaders had agreed to a “joint approach” to the evacuation and a “roadmap” for engaging with the Taliban.
 
As part of this agreement, leaders agreed to uphold President Biden’s 31 August withdrawal deadline on the “number one condition” that the Taliban guarantee safe passage for those who want to leave Afghanistan after the end of this month.
 
The condition could prove contentious for the Taliban, who used their own press conference today to effectively ban Afghans from Kabul airport. But the G7 leaders are banking on their political, diplomatic – and crucially – economic leverage to guarantee safe passage in the coming weeks.
 
Johnson warned that if allies are to eventually unfreeze billions of frozen assets, the Taliban must stop Afghanistan from returning to a “breeding ground of terror” and a “narco state” and allow girls up to the age of 18 to be educated.
 
In an official statement from the session, G7 leaders said: “We affirm our enduring commitment to the people of Afghanistan, including through a renewed humanitarian effort by the international community.”
 
But despite the united rhetoric, growing rifts between the US, the UK, Italy, France, Germany, Japan and Canada lie just beneath the surface.
 
In the run-up to the meeting, European leaders aired their displeasure at having their hands tied by Joe Biden’s unilateral decision to pull out of Afghanistan, while the US president resisted pressure to pick up the phone to his G7 allies for more than 36 hours after Kabul fell to the Taliban.
 
Now that Biden has rejected the much-publicised pleas of Johnson and his European allies to extend the evacuation at Kabul airport beyond his 31 August deadline, the trend of US isolationism and the calls from France and Italy for a revived EU defence system will only have been strengthened.
 
However, the fallout of today’s G7 decision will be most keenly felt by those Afghans who are desperate to escape their increasingly hostile home environment.  
 
Today, Michelle Bachelet, the UN Human Rights High Commissioner, warned of “credible” reports of serious human rights violations committed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, including the summary executions of civilians, restrictions on women and limitations on protests against their rule.
 
On top of these horrors, the combination of Covid, a lack of food and water and the widespread loss of homes after the Taliban takeover has created a humanitarian emergency in the country, with UN agencies warning of food shortages as early as September without urgent aid funding.
 
Round-the-clock evacuations over the next few days will try to evacuate as many Western citizens and US allies as possible before the 31 August deadline. 

But the desperate Afghans being barred from the airport deserve clearer plans from the G7 leaders on humanitarian aid and an extended evacuation schedule if the group is to live up to their pledge of “enduring commitment to the people of Afghanistan” in the coming weeks.