Dominic Raab denies claims in the name of the Afghanistan war
The foreign minister denied allegations in the Sunday Times that he did not receive regular calls from Afghan and Pakistani ministers during the evacuation from Kabul airport, claiming that he believed Afghanistan was «yesterday’s war».
Dominic Raab told Sky News: «Anyone who walks with the Sunday Times or any other newspaper in a time of crisis, including an evacuation that has lasted two consecutive weeks, gives briefings either to me or to the FBI. They are credible and are largely irresponsible.
“I spoke, for example, to Foreign Minister Qureshi (of Pakistan) more intensely in view of the evacuation but we were talking about this, and you can see that we were in this… why? Because we are out of 17,000 people.”
He later told LBC, «I can’t tell you about my exact call sheet for the past six months.»
But he added that he was part of the ‘team of ministers’ and delegated some of the phone calls to colleagues including Lord Ahmed, saying: ‘It is right to have a mandate, a division of labor if you are to work effectively as a team. Anyone who tells you otherwise has not done such work.’