Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney has advised the Irish nationals still in Afghanistan to wait for guidance from consular staff about when to leave.
At present there remained 60 Irish nationals, along with 15 Afghans who have Irish residency, 150 cases of family reunification that have been prioritised and 250 who will come to Ireland under the refugee settlement programme, Mr Coveney told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
Consular staff were in constant communication with the people in question, he said and the necessary documents had been sent either to them directly or to the organisations for which they work.
There had been “quite a number of successes” in getting people out of Afghanistan including the family of an Afghan interpreter who worked with a Northern Ireland naval officer in Helmand province.
Mr Coveney and Minister of State Roderic O’Gorman assisted North Down MP Stephen Farry who had been asked by Tim McCullough from Bangor, Co Down, for assistance in extracting the family of his interpreter who now lives in Australia.
The interpreter had been told he had one month to return to Afghanistan or his family would be killed. He contacted Mr McCullough who approached Stephen Farry of the Alliance party who in turn got in touch with Simon Coveney.
The mother, brothers, sisters and a niece are expected to arrive in Ireland this week following efforts by both the Irish and British governments with the Irish government offering the family refugee status.
Humanitarian aid
Mr Coveney said that there were no guarantees about anything in Afghanistan. The priority of the international community would be ensuring humanitarian aid access as half of the country’s 38 million population relies on humanitarian assistance, supply of which had been effectively cut off recently.
The international community will hold the Taliban to account, he said, but he was not sure that any country trusted the Taliban “per se”.
We will work with whoever we need to, to prevent a humanitarian disaster
Over 100 countries had joined forces to communicate to the Taliban that there would be serious consequences if they did not follow through on their statement about an inclusive government.
Nobody wanted to recognise the Taliban as an official government, but that did not mean there would not be communication with them to get people out and ensure the provision of much needed humanitarian aid, said Mr Coveney.
“We will work with whoever we need to, to prevent a humanitarian disaster.”
Pressure would be put on the Taliban to have as inclusive as possible a government, including women, he said.
