President Joe Biden says the U.S. military is "currently on pace" to finish evacuating people from Afghanistan by August 31st.
The announcement, delivered on Tuesday, comes after Taliban officials issued a second warning to the United States, ordering U.S. troops to start withdrawing from the country by the end of the month.
"The sooner we can finish, the better," Biden says. "Each day of operations brings added risk to our troops, but the completion by August 31st depends upon the Taliban continuing to cooperate; allow access to the airport for those who are transporting out and no disruption to our operations."
Since the Taliban took over on August 14th, the U.S. has whisked more than 70,000 people out of Afghanistan, Biden says, with 6,000 of those evacuations occurring over the past 12 hours.
“We believe that we have time between now and the 31st to get out any American who wants to get out,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday.
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