Foreign secretary Dominic Raab has flown to Qatar to hold talks about the government’s “top priority” of safely evacuating British nationals and Afghan interpreters from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
Mr Raab’s trip follows a grilling from MPs, where he was asked about a Foreign Office document from July – weeks before his holiday in Crete – suggesting the Taliban could advance rapidly across Afghanistan.
A statement from the Foreign Office said the minister’s “immediate priority” was to help any remaining UK nationals and Afghans who supported the British mission to get to the UK.
The foreign secretary will meet the Amir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and the deputy prime minister and foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani during his visit to Doha.
Mr Raab will be briefed on talks between UK officials and the Taliban, and is expected to discuss the prospect of persuading the new regime to reopen Kabul airport.
The Foreign Office said Mr Raab will discuss four key priorities for Afghanistan while in Doha, which include “preventing Afghanistan becoming a haven for terrorists, responding to the humanitarian plight, safeguarding regional stability, and holding the Taliban to account on human rights”.
The British embassy to Afghanistan is now up and running in Doha, the Foreign Office said. Sir Nick Kay, former UK ambassador to Afghanistan, said he is sure there will be discussion “quite soon” about the options for restoring a British diplomatic presence within Kabul.
As Mr Raab visits Doha, Foreign Office minister Lord Ahmad will travel to Tajikistan to discuss safe passage of those fleeing from Afghanistan. Boris Johnson is meanwhile expected to visit troops in the south east of England who helped with the evacuation.
On Wednesday, Mr Raab told the Foreign Affairs Committee he could not give a “definitive answer” of how many people in Afghanistan who would be eligible for settlement in the UK under existing schemes have been “left behind”.
Mr Raab faced sustained questioning from MPs on how the UK failed to predict the speed at which the Afghan government would fall to the Taliban, which seized Kabul on August 15.
He told them the intelligence assessment was that “given the troop withdrawal by the end of August, you’d see a steady deterioration from that point and it was unlikely Kabul would fall this year”.
But a Foreign Office document called a principal risk register, from 22 July, appeared to warn Afghanistan could fall to the Taliban much sooner than the UK had previously predicted.
The document reportedly stated: “Peace talks are stalled and US Nato withdrawal is resulting in rapid Taliban advances. This could lead to: fall of cities, collapse of security forces, Taliban return to power, mass displacement and significant humanitarian need. The embassy may need to close if security deteriorates.”
However, a Foreign Office spokesman said it was “wrong and misleading” to suggest the document was “at odds with our detailed assessments of the situation in Afghanistan or our public position throughout the crisis”.
They added: “The July document makes clear that our central planning assumption at the time was that the peace process in Afghanistan would run for up to a further six months.”
Mr Raab was also pressed by MPs about his holiday to Crete in mid-August as the Taliban surrounded Kabul, but he refused to offer further details, labelling the questions a “fishing expedition”.
Labour MP Lisa Nandy MP, shadow foreign secretary, said the committee hearing had been “a staggeringly poor showing from a foreign secretary who is completely out of his depth”.
She added: “Despite his own department’s clear warnings weeks before Kabul fell, the foreign secretary was asleep at the wheel.”
The Conservative chair of the Commons Defence Committee Tobias Ellwood told The Independent that Mr Raab’s appearance had bolstered his demand for a public inquiry into the UK’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, defence secretary Ben Wallace appeared to strike back at Mr Raab’s assertion that intelligence was to blame for the UK being caught out by the speed of the Taliban takeover.
In an interview with the Spectator magazine, Mr Wallace said: “I’ve already seen some lines about the failure of intelligence. History shows us that it’s not about failure of intelligence, it’s about the limits of intelligence.”
