Senior State Dept official, in call w/journalists, says at least 85 US citizens & 79 legal permanent residents have departed Afghanistan with US govt assistance since Aug. 31. An additional number of US citizens & LPRs have departed Afghanistan in last month on private charters
He said they have another group of approximately 100 US citizens and LPRs ready to go in near future.
He said 2 biggest constraints to departures remain: *Taliban unpredictability regarding who is permitted to depart; *Absence of regular air service.
'Here at main state & embassies around region, many people continue to work this problem every day in pretty much every time zone'
He said State is in regular communication with private groups organizing own charter flights to help their afghan friends depart. he said there the limitations are not just the aforementioned ones but also cases of when the people who get off the planes are not those on manifest
He said pretty much every charter that has gone to USG reception point,...there have been challenges with the population of passengers that deplane: we have had stowaways, ground crews that climbed on plane, and in some cases unaccompanied minors

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More from @lrozen

28 Sep
🧵Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), a member of Senate Armed Services Comm., noted to reporters on a call tonight that the committee held only one hearing on Afghanistan all last year, the year the Trump admin struck the deal with the Taliban to pull all US troops out of Afghanistan
By contrast, they have held 5 hearings on Afghanistan this year (since Ds took control of Senate). He noted a great deal of the hearing today was spent on whether we should have left Afghanistan at all. He thought that was a question we should have been asking a year ago
after the Doha agreement committed all US troops to leave by May 2021. The Armed Serv. comm has had 5 hearings on Afghanistan this year, & 1 last year, King said. Important context. The question of should we have left at all dominated the meeting this morning. But SASC wasn’t
Read 8 tweets
28 Sep
Sen. King: this committee never had a hearing on decision to withdraw from afghanistan made (by trump admin) in Feb. 2020.
and when Republicans controlled the committee
Tillis (I think) establishes Taliban was not living up to deal during the Trump admin when Trump drew down anyhow and pressed for the release of 5000 prisoners, then says it was up to Biden not to stick with the deal
Read 5 tweets
27 Sep
New from me: Diplomats express rising pessimism on prospects for reviving nuclear pact as Iran is coy on when it will return to talks and gives no positive answer on P5+1 position it pick up where talks left off
diplomatic.substack.com/p/growing-gloo…
US and European officials seemed more gloomy on Iran at the end of UNGA high level week than earlier in the week. “I believe that increasing pessimism is justified,” a European official involved in the talks told me. diplomatic.substack.com/p/growing-gloo…
“Nothing that’s happened…has made us more optimistic,” a senior US diplomat said. “The absence of a positive answer leads us to be concerned that they intend to come up with a new framework, or new concerns or new demands.” diplomatic.substack.com/p/growing-gloo…
Read 5 tweets
24 Sep
🧵Iran FM Amir-Abdollahian, speaking to journalists in NY today, did not rule out sitting with the US: as far as the govt of US is concerned, the standard for us will be to watch the actions of US officials, and judge based on the actions taken by Pres. Biden, that will be the
basis on which we will formwule our decisions. not only based on the paradoxical statements and words we keep receiving.
He raised a few times Iran not able to access its own money to buy covid vaccine.
Read 6 tweets
22 Sep
🧵Quite strong critique from former US UnderSecState for Arms Control & NATO DepSG of how Biden admin handled AUKUS. Sub “deal may be a brilliant stroke, but it was done without strategic imagination. What was needed was a 3-cornered billiard shot — pivot to Asia, yes,…” 1/x
“but keep our European allies on board and continue the fight against nuclear proliferation.
Instead, we have simultaneously enraged the French and blown apart 60 years of U.S. policy to minimize the use of highly enriched uranium….” 2/
“Surely there is a way to keep our European allies with us — they are our rear-guard against Russia — and not lend encouragement to nuclear proliferators.” 3/3
Read 4 tweets
21 Sep
🧵New from me: Signs of growing international unity on Iran even amid France/US dustup diplomatic.substack.com/p/hopeful-sign…
While France FM says he does not plan to meet Blinken in NY, and Iran has not yet agreed to a meeting with the p4+1 or Joint Commission, France FM said he did not think fallout on Australia sub pact would impact negotiations on Iran. diplomatic.substack.com/p/hopeful-sign…
Meantime, Russia’s envoy pressed Iran to pick up where negotiations left off in June when it returns to talks. “It seems that the P5+1 is united on the necessity of resuming the seventh round from where they left off,” @AliVaez diplomatic.substack.com/p/hopeful-sign…
Read 4 tweets

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