Turkey completes evacuation of troops from Afghanistan

Only a technical delegation of 20-30 people will continue to stay in the country, President Erdoğan has said.

İstanbul

Turkey completes evacuation of troops from Afghanistan

Photo: Ministry of National Defense

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Turkey has completed the evacuation of its military personnel from Afghanistan, the Ministry of National Defense has announced.

"The evacuation of our heroic Turkish Armed Forces personnel, who successfully fulfilled their mission in Afghanistan, has been completed. We say 'Welcome to your country' to our soldiers who returned to their homeland," the ministry said on Twitter today (August 27).

The ministry announced on Wednesday that it had started evacuating troops after evaluating the circumstances in the country.

Earlier, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that the withdrawal of the troops would be completed tonight.

"No one from us, neither soldiers nor civilians, will stay there any longer. There will be just a technical delegation of about 20-30 people," he said in Bosnia and Herzegovina's capital Sarajevo.

Turkey wanted to continue operating the Kabul airport but was not able to convince the Taliban, which took over the capital city on August 15.

20 yıl boyunca Afganistan görevini başarıyla yerine getiren Kahraman Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri personelimizin tahliyeleri tamamlandı. Vatan toprağına dönen Mehmetçiklerimize "ülkenize hoş geldiniz" diyoruz.pic.twitter.com/L0QfwuQOQS
— T.C. Millî Savunma Bakanlığı (@tcsavunma) August 27, 2021