President Joe Biden met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Friday amid growing fears about security in the region ahead of the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, which is already underway and set to be complete by September 11.
The meeting comes at a tenuous time for Ghani’s country, which is seeing an increase in attacks and areas controlled by the Taliban as the U.S. presence subsides.
On Friday, Presidents Biden and Ghani said that during the meeting they had committed to unity between the two countries even after the United States officially leaves.
“The partnership between Afghanistan and the United States is not ending. It’s going to be sustained,” Biden said from the Oval Office. “Afghans are gonna have to decide their future — what they want — but it won’t be for lack of us being help.”
President Ghani paid tribute to the more than 2,000 American soldiers who lost their lives serving in Afghanistan.
He called President Biden’s decision to withdraw the military “historic” and said that it has “made everybody recalculate.”
“We’re entering into a new chapter of our relationship where the partnership with the United States would not be military,” Ghani said. “We’re very encouraged and satisfied that this partnership is taking place.”
He said Afghan’s government and armed forces were “determined to have unity, coherence, national sense of sacrifice and will not spare anything.”
Ghani noted that the Afghan National Security Forces had retaken six districts back from the Taliban as of that morning.
Earlier Friday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki defended the decision to withdraw despite intelligence reported by the Wall Street Journal that the Afghan government could fall within six months of the U.S. leaving.
“[President Biden’s] fundamental belief is after 20 years it’s time to bring our troops home,” Psaki said. “We’re doing that in a timely and orderly fashion led by the Department of Defense.”
President Ghani’s previous comments on the U.S. withdrawal were not so optimistic, previously warning that “no one in the region will be spared.”
Ghani’s last visit to the White House was in 2015, when he met with President Barack Obama and took a trip to Arlington National Cemetery with then-vice president Joe Biden.
The White House also confirmed Friday that the U.S. would evacuate thousands of Afghan interpreters and others who aided the United States as they face death threats and possible revenge attacks from the Taliban
Psaki said that they would be relocated to a “third location” but did not specify whether it would be another country or a U.S. territory like Guam.
More than 18,000 Afghans are in a visa pipeline awaiting approval, so the evacuation will at least include those applicants and their families, and they will be moved to the new place while their visa processing is completed.
