Ministers from the Nordic countries announced on Friday that Denmark and Norway will temporarily close their Kabul embassies, while Finland will evacuate up to 130 local Afghan workers.
“The Danes in Afghanistan must leave immediately; the situation is quite dangerous,” foreign minister Jeppe Kofod said at a press conference, adding that all embassy staff would be evacuated and the mission would be temporarily terminated.
Norway has reiterated the decision, with foreign minister Ine Eriksen Soreide saying during a press conference that evacuation will be offered “to locally employed Afghans with immediate family in Norway who request it.”
In the meantime, Pekka Haavisto, Soreide’s Finnish counterpart, claimed the country’s parliament had agreed to “accept in up to 130 Afghans who have worked in the service of Finland, the EU, and Nato, as well as their families” due to “the rapidly deteriorating security situation.”
According to Haavisto, Finland’s embassy will remain opespendr the time being, pending continuous security assessments.
The pronouncements came on the heels of Washington’s statement on Thursday that it will send tens of thousands of troops to Kabul to evacuate diplomats and other foreign people in the face of the Taliban’s push into Afghanistan’s capital.
The United Kingdom swiftly followed in the footsteps of the United States.
In the midst of the Taliban attack approaching the Afghan capital, Germany declared on Friday that it was reducing its diplomatic staff in Kabul to a “absolute minimum.”
