NATO delays decision on Afghanistan withdrawal
Facing May 1 deadline under deal with Taliban, allies will wait for Biden to finish policy review.NATO defense ministers on Thursday pushed back a decision on complying with a May 1 deadline to withdraw all of their forces from Afghanistan, saying they would wait for U.S. President Joe Biden and his new administration to complete a policy review now underway in Washington.
The May 1 deadline was set in a peace agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban brokered by the administration of former President Donald Trump. The peace deal has been violated repeatedly, and allies have suggested the level of violence in Afghanistan is still too high to justify a total pull-out of allied forces.
Following a two-day virtual meeting of defense ministers, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance had decided to postpone a final decision and that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had pledged to work on the issue with allies in the weeks ahead.
