President Biden called on Taliban rulers to release a US civil engineer who was abducted 2 years ago.
The US President, Joe Biden, has called on Afghanistan’s Taliban on January 30, 2022, Sunday, to release a US civil engineer who was abducted two years ago and is believed to be the last American hostage held by the Taliban.
Mark Frerichs, 59, a civil engineer and contractor from Lombard, Illinois was kidnapped in January 2020 from the capital of Kabul. He is believed to be in the custody of the Taliban-linked Haqqani network.
Frerichs is also a US Navy veteran, who work on development projects in Afghanistan for a decade. On Monday, marks his second year in captivity.
US troop’s pullout deal was signed and was transferred to the Haqqani network, a brutal Taliban faction accused of some of the deadliest attacks of the war.
President Biden said in a statement: “Threatening the safety of Americans or any innocent civilians is always unacceptable, and hostage-taking is an act of particular cruelty and cowardice.”
“The Taliban must immediately release Mark Frerichs before it can expect any consideration of its aspirations for legitimacy. This is not negotiable,” he added.
Biden pulled US troops out of Afghanistan in August in a chaotic withdrawal that drew sharp criticism from Republicans and his own Democrats as well as foreign allies and punctured his approval rating.
Afghanistan faces a thorny humanitarian crisis following the U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban quickly seized control of much of the country and the foreign aid that been flowing into the country largely halted, putting at risk the lives of millions of Afghans who could starve or freeze to death.
Frerichs family has criticized the US government for not pressing harder to secure his release. Charlene Cakora, Frerichs’ sister, has made a personal plea to the President of the United States last week in a Washington Post opinion piece titled, “President Biden, please bring home my brother, the last American held hostage in Afghanistan”.
She said that her family is “grateful” for Biden’s words “But what we really want is to have Mark home. We know the president has options in front of him to make that happen and hope Mark’s safe return will become a priority.”
A Taliban delegation arrived on Saturday in Norway for three days of talks with Western diplomats and members of Afghan civil society, which it hopes will help “transform the atmosphere of war” in Afghanistan.
Headed by Foreign Minister Amir Khan Mutaqqi, the delegation is the first to hold official talks with the West on European soil since seizing power in Afghanistan.