PremiumIndia evacuated around 80 nationals on Saturday from Kabul by a transport military aircraft of the Indian Air Force amid a deteriorating security scenario in the Afghan capital
External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Saturday discussed the situation in Afghanistan with his German counterpart Heiko Maas.
“Appreciate the call from Foreign Minister @HeikoMaas of Germany," Jaishankar wrote on Twitter.
“Discussed the evacuation challenges in Afghanistan and the policy implications of the changes there," he added.
Earlier in the day, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said "The [Afghan] army collapsed at a breathtaking pace," Merkel said at an election event. "We had expected the resistance to be stronger."
Merkel said the focus now was on rescuing people from Afghanistan, but later there would need to be a discussion on what had or had not been achieved.
This comes in the backdrop of India evacuating around 80 nationals on Saturday from Kabul by a transport military aircraft of the Indian Air Force amid a deteriorating security scenario in the Afghan capital.
The aircraft landed at Dushanbe in Tajikistan after evacuating the Indians, reported news agency PTI, adding the flight is expected to arrive at the Hindon airbase near Delhi in the evening.
India has already evacuated 200 people, including the Indian envoy and other staffers of its embassy in Kabul, in two C-17 heavy-lift transport aircraft of the IAF after the Taliban seized control of Kabul on Sunday.
The first evacuation flight brought back over 40 Indians on Monday.
The second C-17 aircraft evacuated around 150 people including Indian diplomats, officials, security personnel and some stranded Indians on Tuesday.
The Taliban swept across Afghanistan this month, seizing control of almost all key towns and cities, including Kabul, in the backdrop of the withdrawal of the US forces.
Several countries, including Germany, are evacuating their citizens from the war-torn country as uncertainty and fear.
Jaishankar had on Friday held talks with his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Afghanistan as he stopped over in Qatar's capital Doha on his way back home from a four-day visit to the US.
Doha has been the venue for the intra-Afghan peace talks and Qatar has emerged as a crucial player in facilitating the Afghan peace process.
The Taliban's political leaders have been residing in the Gulf country for years.
Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports said the Taliban has been carrying out door-to-door searches of several embassies in Kabul and had gone to the Indian mission complex as well.
Qatar had also hosted talks between the Taliban and the United States. Earlier this month, Qatari special envoy for conflict resolution Mutlaq bin Majed Al-Qahtani visited India during which he met Jaishankar, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla and J P Singh, the Joint Secretary in the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran division in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
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