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Merkel: Germany Must Engage With Taliban to Help Evacuations
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September 6, 2021
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0:41Now Playing(AP) Germany’s chancellor says the country must engage with the Taliban in order to help evacuate Afghans who had worked for them.
"They are the ones one needs to talk to now," Angela Merkel told reporters on Sunday at a joint news conference with Armin Laschet, the centre-right Union bloc’s candidate who is hoping to succeed her as chancellor in this month’s German national election.
She said it was also in Germany’s interest to support international aid organisations who are helping improve the humanitarian conditions in Afghanistan.
She called it a "good signal" that the airport in Kabul was re-opened, allowing medical aid into the country again.
Some western countries have been reluctant about talking with the Taliban.
Merkel’s remarks came after a spokesman for the Taliban told a German newspaper that his group was ready for full diplomatic relations with the Germans, and had "forgiven" them their past cooperation with the Americans in the country.
Merkel did not refer to his remarks, nor did she talk about establishing any kind of official diplomatic relations.
The chancellor also expressed full support on Sunday for Laschet with whom she toured the town of Hagen and another region in North Rhine-Westphalia state that were badly damaged by flooding in July.
Laschet is also the governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, a western state that is the country's most populous.
"Armin Laschet leads this biggest state of Germany very successfully," Merkel told reporters. "Somebody who can lead such a state can also lead Germany as chancellor."
Germany’s parliamentary election takes place on September 26.
Merkel, who led the Union bloc to four election victories, said in 2018 that she would not seek another term.
She has presided over the European Union's biggest economy since 2005.
Laschet, who also leads the Christian Democratic Union party, is lagging behind the centre-left Social Democrats in the polls.
He has received particularly unfavorable reviews after a series of slips on the campaign trail in recent months.
The Social Democrats’ success in the polls is helped by the relative popularity of their candidate, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, who is also vice chancellor in Merkel’s coalition government.
At a press conference with Laschet, Merkel said in the next three weeks “a full commitment is needed on all levels, both from the government and the campaigners.”
"There are a lot of things we need to do at the same time: there's the coronavirus, the floods and then there is also the election," Merkel said, adding that "I think that together we will do it well - and Armin Laschet knows he has my support."
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