Tonight the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) held an extraordinary sitting to discuss Estonia’s activities relating to the situation in Afghanistan. The Committee emphasised by consensus that the Government should enable granting asylum to Estonia’s Afghan cooperation partners as soon as possible.
Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Marko Mihkelson underlined that in the current situation, each hour of delay in action was lost time. “Estonia’s moral and political obligation is to promptly support our Afghan cooperation partners who have turned to us with an application for asylum or will do that in the nearest future. The most important is to grant international protection to those who really need it at the moment,” Mihkelson added.
“The Government has to speed up making decisions in resolution of humanitarian issues,” Deputy Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Mihhail Lotman Committee emphasised. “Certainly the programmes connected with Estonia in Afghanistan have to be reviewed as a matter of urgency, keeping in mind first of all the security of persons,” he added.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Eva-Maria Liimets and Chair of the Board and coordinator of the activities in Afghanistan of NGO Mondo and coordinator of its activities in Afghanistan Riina Kuusik-Rajasaar gave the Foreign Affairs Committee an overview of the situation in Afghanistan and Estonia’s activities at the international level.
The Foreign Affairs Committee will continue the discussion of this topic in the nearest future.
