Kabul
The Taliban on Tuesday warned Turkey against ex-tending its troop presence in Afghani-stan when US-led forces leave the country, insisting the decision was “repre-hensible”.
“The decision… is ill-advised, a violation of our sovereignty and territorial integrity and against our national inter-ests,” the group said in a statement, days after Turkey prom-ised to provide troops to protect Ka-bul airport when for-eign forces leave next month.
“We consider the stay of foreign forces in our homeland by any country under whatever pretext as occupation,” said the Taliban in the state-ment and added that “invaders” will be dealt with according to the Fatwa (decree) under which they have fought for the last two decades.
The statement urged the Turkish people and politicians to “reverse their deci-sion” as it would det-rimental to both countries.
Earlier, the Taliban said Turkey should withdraw its troops from Afghanistan under the 2020 deal for the pullout of US forces, effectively re-jecting Ankara’s pro-posal to guard and run Kabul’s airport after US-led NATO forces depart. AFP
