Department of Politics and International Relations

Afghanistan pullout: Nato betrays its own values if interpreters and other local staff are left at risk

Posted on 21 April 2021

Dr Sara De Jong's opinion piece in The Conversation

A man wearing British military uniform speaks to an Afghani man wearing sunglasses and a headscarf. Close colleagues: a British soldier with an Afghani translator after a suicide attack on a convoy of Western troops in Kabul, 2007. REUTERS/Desmond Boylan

Dr Sara De Jong's opinion piece "Afghanistan pullout: Nato betrays its own values if interpreters and other local staff are left at risk" in the Politics and Society section of The Conversation this week says "The announcement of the US and Nato military withdrawal from Afghanistan later this year has elicited many responses, not least expressions of concern about the plight of interpreters and other local staff employed by western military forces. These concerns are not new but now have renewed urgency."

Sara concludes "Without a coordinated approach to the protection of the Afghan local staff that supports its partner nations, Nato risks betraying its promise that their “drawdown will be orderly, coordinated, and deliberate”.