Afghanistan: India, UK to work together to tackle security threats, refugee crisis

Amid the Afghanistan crisis, India and the UK have joined hands to tackle the shared security threats and refugee crisis, UK's Foreign Secretary & First Secretary of State Dominic Raab informed on Thursday. In a statement on Twitter, the senior British official revealed that he had spoken to External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar and the two had discussed the situation in Afghanistan. After the interaction, it had been decided that UK and India would work together to ease the humanitarian plight of ordinary Afghans as well as tackle shared security threats and support refugees. 

India's measures to tackle Afghan crisis

When it comes to individual measures, India was one of the first countries to open E-visas for all Afghan nationals, irrespective of their religion. In an attempt to assist citizens from Afghanistan, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Tuesday informed about a fast category of electronic visas called “e-Emergency X-Misc Visa”. In a tweet, a MHA spokesperson said that the decision has been taken 'in view of the current situation in Afghanistan' and has no criteria pertaining to the religion of the Afghan national who wishes to leave the country.

UK's efforts to tackle Afghan crisis

The UK on the other hand has announced that it will welcome as many as 20,000 Afghans under a new resettlement programme that will give priority to women, girls and religious and other minorities. It has doubled its humanitarian and development aid to Afghanistan to £286m this year to ensure the most vulnerable Afghans receive the humanitarian assistance they need. 

On Wednesday, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson told legislators that Britain had evacuated more than 2,052 Afghans as the tension in the country is escalating. He revealed that 2,000 more applications had been completed whereas many more were being handled. Johnson has also asserted that the UK would judge the insurgent group on its “actions, rather than by its words”. 

The Ashraf Ghani-led government formally handed over the country to the Taliban on August 15 after the militant group invaded the capital city of Kabul. Thereafter, Ghani fled the war-torn nation and chaos broke out in different parts of Afghanistan with citizens flocking the airports to escape the Taliban regime.

(With Agency Inputs)