A company can secure Kabul airport, Turkey FM says

Turkey can give the mission of protecting Afghanistan’s Kabul Hamid Karzai International Airport to a private security company, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said yesterday.

Speaking to Turkish broadcaster NTV, Cavusoglu said the Taliban or Afghan forces can ensure security outside the airport and the international community needs a structure it can trust for the airport to operate.

“In my view, the Taliban or Afghan forces could ensure security outside the airport,” Cavusoglu said.

“But inside, there could be a security company trusted by the international community or all other companies,” he said. “Even if airlines, including Turkish Airlines, are keen to fly there, insurance companies would not allow it.”

He added that Turkey is working with Qatar and the United States on the terms under which the airport could reopen to regular flights needed to deliver humanitarian aid, evacuate stranded civilians and re-establish diplomatic missions in Kabul.

“Currently, planes can take off and land at the airport. Some flights have restarted. Some countries’ citizens are left there. We also have citizens there. We have evacuated more than 1,400 people, 1,060 of these are our citizens,” Cavusoglu said.

READ: Turkey FM: ‘It would be a wrong decision if Turkey entirely withdraws from Afghanistan’