A group of U.S. lawmakers has urged President Joe Biden to ensure that the Taliban, which is now the de facto ruler of Afghanistan, do not destabilise Pakistan and acquire nuclear weapons.
The lawmakers demanded that Mr. Biden should answer critical questions on what happened in Afghanistan and what are his plans to move forward.
“Are you prepared to support regional allies militarily in the event that the Taliban militarise the Afghanistan border? What is your plan to help to ensure that the Taliban do not destabilise its nuclear neighbour Pakistan?” the group of 68 lawmakers from the Senate and the House of Representatives asked in a letter addressed to Mr. Biden on Wednesday.
“Do you have a plan to ensure that Afghanistan, under Taliban occupation, will never acquire a nuclear weapon?” they asked.
The lawmakers said over the past weeks, the world watched with utter shock as the Taliban took over Afghanistan with astonishing speed, “the result of unforced errors made by withdrawing completely the small remaining footprint of our main military force from Afghanistan, and by unnecessarily delaying the evacuation of U.S. personnel and its Afghan partners”.
The situation in Afghanistan has rapidly “metastasized” into Taliban rule with reinstated oppression of women and girls, the repression of civil society, they said.
