The US will continue to make sure Afghan veterans who fought alongside Western forces in the battle against the Taliban are taken care of, the White House said on Wednesday.
The American pledge adds to the pressure on authorities in the UK, who have been criticized for rejecting an Afghan pilot’s application to Britain’s Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy scheme.
The unnamed former lieutenant in the Afghan Air Force arrived in the UK with other migrants on a small boat that crossed the English Channel. He said he did so because there were no other safe routes open to him.
He now faces deportation to Rwanda under the UK government’s controversial new asylum policy, which was last month ruled unlawful by the British Court of Appeal.
As reported previously by Arab News, the pilot was described as a “patriot to his nation” by his American supervisor.
“I am really disappointed. We weren’t carrying out simple tasks in Afghanistan, we were doing your missions. Without our Afghan forces, the UK and US wouldn’t have been able to do their activities,” the pilot previously told The Independent newspaper.
Source : Arab News