UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced that Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has his trust after the latter faces calls to resign over his response to the current crisis in Afghanistan.
When asked if he still has confidence in Raab, the PM replied: "Absolutely, and I can tell you that the whole of the government has been working virtually round the clock ... to do what we can ... to deal with a situation that has been long in gestation."
According to Reuters, BoJo also said that, if necessary, the UK would work with the Taliban* in order to deal with the situation in Afghanistan.
"What I want to assure people is that our political and diplomatic efforts to find a solution for Afghanistan, working with the Taliban, of course if necessary, will go on," he said.
Earlier, Dominic Raab faced accusations that he, while vacationing on Crete, delegated a crucial call to the Afghan foreign minister to discuss the evacuation of Afghan interpreters from the country as the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.
"The whole of government has been working tirelessly over the last week to help as many people evacuate from Afghanistan as possible," Raab said as he defended his response to the situation, adding that he had been focused on the events at Kabul Airport.
"The call was delegated to a minister of state because I was prioritising security and capacity at the airport on the direct advice of the director and the director general overseeing the crisis response," Raab said in a statement. "In any event, the Afghan foreign minister agreed to take the call, but was unable to because of the rapidly deteriorating situation."
As the United States and its allies moved to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban launched a nationwide offensive, meeting little resistance as the militants captured key cities and seized vast amounts of military hardware abandoned by government troops.
As the Taliban’s blitz culminated in the fall of Kabul, many Afghan civilians tried to flee abroad as the group's rule quickly become a reality.
*The Taliban is a terrorist organisation banned in Russia and many other countries.