WASHINGTON: There is no rush to recognise the Taliban either by the United States or many of the countries that it has spoken to, the White House said asserting that such a move would be dependent on what they deliver on the expectations of the global community.
"There's no rush to recognition from the United States or any country we have spoken with around the world. It will be very dependent on their behaviour and whether they deliver on what the expectations are of the global community," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at her daily news conference on Wednesday.
At a separate news conference, the State Department echoed the same view.
"We will continue to have conversations that serve our interests, as well as our allies and partners," Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria J Nuland told reporters.
"But the first thing we want is to see them live up to the obligations that they have under the UN Charter, as well as the public statements that they themselves have made about their expectation for an Afghanistan that respects human rights, respects international law, allows international citizens and Afghans who wish to leave," she said in response to a question.
The US obviously had contacts with the Taliban during the withdrawal, she said.
"We had it during the effort that we were trying to midwife a negotiation. Those conversations have continued intensively to enable the evacuation of -- that we undertook, and to try to get the kinds of guarantees of safe passage, etc., and tolerance, and to talk about the standard set in the UN Security Council resolution to talk about the terrorist threat as well because the expectation is that they claim to be able to control the security of Afghanistan," Nuland said.
The United States, she said, stands by the latest UN Security Council resolution.
"Those are the international community's expectations and the UNSC's expectations for a Taliban-led government, and the way it will govern, and the way it will interact with the international system," she said.
"I think we need to see them live up to their own commitments and live up to the standards set by the UNSC before we go very far down this road," she added.
America's relationship with the Taliban, she said, will be guided by what they do not by what they say.
"Now, there are some urgent questions, like the humanitarian condition of the people of Afghanistan."
"So, we are looking at those kinds of things, how we can continue to provide humanitarian aid without benefiting any government that is formed," she said.
"Those kinds of things are natural. But we have made no decisions about any of the rest of it, and we certainly won't unless and until we see the kinds of behaviour expected in the UN Security Council resolution," Nuland said.
Responding to questions at the White House, Psaki noted that no one anticipated that the Taliban would be able to take over the country as quickly as they did or that the Afghan National Security Forces would fold as quickly as they did.
She was responding to questions on the transcripts of a phone call between President Joe Biden and his then Afghan counterpart Ashraf Ghani in July, during which both leaders appeared completely unaware that the Taliban would take over.
"The president has consistently conveyed, and I just noted an example publicly, that the Afghan leadership at the time needed to do exactly that, lead. They needed to come together in a cohesive manner. They needed to be united," she said.
"They needed to show the country and the Afghan people, they were going to fight and they were going to lead through this transition even as the US forces left," Psaki added.
Meanwhile, the collapse of Afghanistan's government, the Taliban's takeover of the country, and the rush to evacuate European citizens and Afghan employees have highlighted the European Union's need for its own rapid-reaction military force, senior EU officials say.
As the foreign and defense ministers of member states gather in Slovenia this week to discuss the EU's approach to the Afghan crisis, officials said in interviews and public remarks that the 27-nation bloc's dependence on U.S.troops during the airlift of evacuees demonstrated the EU's lack of preparedness and independence.
"As a global economic and democratic power, can Europe be content with a situation where we are unable to ensure, unassisted, the evacuation of our citizens and those under threat because they have helped us?" European Council President Charles Michel said Wednesday.
"In my view, we do not need another such geopolitical event to grasp that the EU must strive for greater decision-making autonomy and greater capacity for action in the world."
After the Biden administration pulled most of its military personnel from Afghanistan, Taliban militants took control of the conflict-ravaged country in just a few weeks as the NATO-trained Afghan national security forces withered.
NATO allies that had relied on U.S. airpower, transportation and logistics during their two decades in Afghanistan said they were forced to pull out, too.
And without U.S support and equipment, European countries would not have been able to guarantee the safe passage of their citizens or even their troops out of Afghanistan.
Amid calls for "European strategic autonomy" from a non-member like the United States, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said Wednesday in a opinion piece for The New York Times that the withdrawal of Western troops and airlift from Afghanistan should serve as a "wake-up call" and urged the bloc to invest more in its security capabilities.
"Europe and the United States were united as never before in Afghanistan: It was the first time that NATO's Article 5, committing all members to defend one another, was invoked. And for many years, Europeans provided a strong military commitment and an important economic aid program, amounting to a total of 17.2 billion euros, or $20.3 billion," Borrell wrote.
"But in the end, the timing and nature of the withdrawal were set in Washington. We Europeans found ourselves , not only for the evacuations out of the Kabul airport but also more broadly, depending on American decisions," the EU's top diplomat said.
To better address any future crises at Europe's doorstep, EU member nations have floated the idea of setting up a 5,000-member stand-by-force capable of quickly intervening.
"This is a number that can make a big difference in many different situations," one senior EU official said this week.
The person spoke anonymously in accordance with EU practices.
He said the U.S deployed around 5,000 troops to secure the Kabul airport, and held up as an example the 5,000-soldier anti-jihadist French military force based in the Sahel region.
France and Germany have pushed for years for the creation of such a force, with both Chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron repeatedly calling for a true European army.
While discussions about establishing one are far from complete, the idea has gained renewed support in the wake of what happened in Afghanistan.
Spain's top military official, Chief of Staff Teodoro López Calderón, told El Mundo newspaper in an interview published Wednesday that the EU's dependence on the U.S. has been "absolute" and that the bloc must develop a military force to be a relevant player on the international scene.
"If not, it will never be one," he said.
"Creating a European army means having a common foreign policy and that we all share the same interests. This is a political leap that still must be achieved. But I don't think there is any doubt that Brussels should increase its military capacity. That is one of the important consequences of what happened in Afghanistan."
Jana Puglierin, a security and defense policy expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said that since the United States is no longer interested as serving as the "world's policeman," the pressure has increased on Europeans to step up.
"In the future, the European Union will need to enhance its contribution to crisis prevention, stabilization, and peacebuilding," Puglierin said.
"The Afghanistan mission has forcefully demonstrated to the Europeans how much they depend on American capabilities."
The idea of a European military force first got discussed in the 1990s with the Balkans wars surrounding the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia in mind.
Back then, the EU set a military target of putting at the bloc's disposal up to 60,000 troops capable of deployment within 60 days.
Instead, the EU later created rapid reaction teams comprising about 1,500 personnel, but they have never been used in a major crisis, and the bloc does not deploy EU missions to active conflict zones.
Another senior EU official said the currently discussed military force would be much bigger than the current standby forces if member countries reach a consensus.
He said the troops would train and conduct exercises together, and that parts of the costs would be covered through common funding.