Dutch defense minister resigns over chaos of Afghan evacuation

Amsterdam-Sana

Following in the footsteps of Foreign Minister Sigrid Kaag, Dutch Defense Minister Ank Bielfeld resigned today over the chaos of the Afghan evacuations and the failure to coordinate the evacuation of Afghan interpreters.

"I told my party and the prime minister that I will ask the king to accept my resignation," Bielfeld was quoted by AFP as saying, the day after a memorandum submitted by the country's parliamentarians in which they formally condemned the government's handling of the evacuation crisis in Afghanistan following the Taliban's takeover of the country.

In her statements in this regard, Bielfeld considered that she did not want to "disrupt the work of her colleagues who are still trying to evacuate people from Afghanistan."

Yesterday, the Dutch parliament criticized the government's inability to evacuate some Afghans and not noticing signs of the Taliban's imminent control of this country.

The resignations of Ministers Kaag and Bielfeld came the day after the dismissal of British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab over his handling of the situation in Afghanistan.

The evacuation of Western countries for their nationals and Afghan citizens who worked in their interest faced great criticism due to the chaos that prevailed and the lack of coordination and preparation, which led to the death of a number of Afghan citizens and left others who had hoped for evacuation with the Taliban movement taking control of the country in the middle of last month.