Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The Government will meet today to make urgent discussions about what support it will give to the 17 Kiwis registered as living in Afghanistan as the country is thrown into turmoil.
The Taliban has seized the presidential palace in Kabul as Afghan's embattled President Ashraf Ghani and other government officials flee the country.
There are 17 New Zealanders officially registered as living in Afghanistan, but the actual number is much higher.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is currently working with people to get out and there were some commercial options to do that but those were diminishing.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told TVNZ it was a "fast evolving situation" in Afghanistan and 17 people had registered themselves on Safe Travel, but the actual number was sitting around 47 due to other New Zealanders or their families also reaching out.
Cabinet is meeting this morning to discuss the options to get the New Zealanders out and would have more information later today.
"We need to make those decisions quickly because that window of time to get people out either by ourselves or via our partners is short."
Ardern told Newshub the security situation on the ground had "moved and changed very quickly".
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Photo / Mark Mitchell
She said the decisions made this morning would take into account both New Zealand citizens and their families, as well as Afghans who had helped the Government including interpreters and third party contractors who had supported New Zealand.
"We are in very close contact with our partners at the highest level to talk about what their plans are because it makes sense for us to work together to try and ensure safe passage and we have not resolved whether that will involve New Zealand people assets or not."
She said the New Zealand Defence Force was always on standby and in close talks with other close allies such as Australia.
There were concerns about human rights on the ground and the rights of woman such as access to education and the lives they were able to lead there and she expected there to be a conversation by the international community about this, she said.
Meanwhile the Government was doing a lot of preparation for the start of next year when changes at the border were expected and some restrictions for less high risk countries would be eased.
However, it would not happen until more of the population was vaccinated and the Government had spaced out when people would get the second dose from 21 days to six weeks to ensure more people were at least getting the first dose as soon as they could.
The transtasman bubble was being assessed separately and came down to the risk and whether it had contained its outbreak.
"I want to give reassurance to New Zealand. We will not be putting them at risk. Their safety is our number one priority so if it is an uncontained outbreak in Australia you won't see that free flowing..." she said.
Ardern said the self-isolation pilot to run from October to December would be tightly run and very small involving "hundreds not thousands".
The travellers had to be vaccinated, have left from New Zealand and have a self-isolation plan including not interacting with family members or others.
Ardern said the Government could have been clearer to New Zealanders in Australia and warned people they had a week to get back before they had to go into MIQ.
There was only one more red flight from New South Wales due and then they were ending, despite reports there were still 11,000 kiwis stuck in Australia.
More red flights were likely but those people would have to enter MIQ, she said.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has fled Kabul. Photo / AP
President leaves Kabul
Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the Afghan National Reconciliation Council, later confirmed Ghani had flown out of the country in an online video.
"He left Afghanistan in a hard time, God hold him accountable," Abdullah said.
A Taliban official earlier said the group will declare the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from the presidential palace in Kabul.
That was the name of the country under the Taliban government ousted by US-led forces after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
