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CIA Director William Burns met with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar in Kabul, according to unnamed US officials quoted by the Washington Post and Associated Press.
The meeting came amid ongoing evacuations at Kabul airport, the Associated Press source said.
Some 16,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan in the past 24 hours, according to the Pentagon, as US troops make an increasingly desperate effort to fly thousands more before the Taliban ‘red line’ for western forces to leave the country. .
US President Joe Biden is under increasing pressure to extend August 31 to withdraw American forces, with Britain expected to lobby for it at a virtual G7 summit on Tuesday.
In addition, Russia, China, the United States and Pakistan are interested in using it as a means of resolving the crisis in Afghanistan, says Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
At the same time, he said, Russia opposes the idea of ​​allowing Afghan refugees to enter the ex-Soviet region of Central Asia — between Russia and Afghanistan — or that US troops be deployed there.
CIA Director William Burns met with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar in Kabul, the Washington Post and Associated Press reported on Tuesday, quoting unnamed U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Officials told the Associated Press that the meeting between Burns and Baradar on Monday came amid ongoing evacuations at Kabul airport.