Berlin calls on Nato to learn lessons from Afghanistan

Berlin: Germany’s defence minister on Tuesday urged Nato to learn lessons from its Afghanistan mission -- slammed as a "debacle" by critics, as allies struggled to pull off a difficult evacuation operation from the capital, Kabul.

Speaking ahead of an emergency meeting of Nato ambassadors, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told German broadcaster ZDF "there’s a lot that we have to work on within Nato". "The question for us will be to what extent are we willing to carry the consequences for this, and to what extent we are prepared to take measures that up to this point we have left to the Americans," Kramp-Karrenbauer said.

Nato ambassadors are meeting on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, where Western allied forces are seeking to accelerate their evacuation operations. In an illustration of the messy situation on the ground, German officials revealed that a German military plane left Kabul carrying just seven evacuees, while hundreds waited on the ground at the airport in the Afghan capital Kabul.