LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called \u200bUS President Donald Trump\u2019s comments about European troops staying off the front lines in Afghanistan insulting and appalling, joining a chorus of criticism from other European officials and veterans.<\/p>\n
\u201cI consider President Trump\u2019s remarks to be insulting and frankly appalling, and I\u2019m not surprised they\u2019ve caused such hurt for the loved ones of those who were killed or injured,\u201d Starmer told reporters.<\/p>\n
When asked whether he would demand an apology from the US leader, Starmer said: \u201cIf I had misspoken in that way or said those words, I would certainly apologize.\u201d<\/p>\n
Britain lost 457 service personnel killed in Afghanistan, its deadliest overseas war since the 1950s. For several of the war\u2019s most intense years it led the allied campaign in Helmand, Afghanistan\u2019s biggest and most violent province, \u200cwhile also fighting as \u200cthe main US battlefield ally in Iraq.<\/p>\n
Starmer\u2019s remarks were notably strong coming \u200cfrom \u2060a \u200bleader who has \u200ctended to avoid direct criticism of Trump in public.<\/p>\n
Trump told Fox Business Network\u2019s \u201cMornings with Maria\u201d on Thursday the United States had \u201cnever needed\u201d the transatlantic alliance and accused allies of staying \u201ca little off the front lines\u201d in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
His remarks added to already strained relations with European allies after he used the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos to again signal his interest in acquiring Greenland.<\/p>\n
Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel condemned Trump\u2019s remarks on Afghanistan, calling them untrue and disrespectful.<\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s Prince Harry, who served in Afghanistan, also weighed in. \u201cThose sacrifices deserve to be spoken about truthfully and with respect,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u2019WE PAID IN \u2060BLOOD FOR THIS ALLIANCE\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cWe expect an apology for this statement,\u201d Roman Polko, a retired Polish general and former special forces commander who also served in Afghanistan and \u200cIraq, told Reuters in an interview.<\/p>\n
Trump has \u201ccrossed a red line,\u201d he added. \u201cWe \u200dpaid with blood for this alliance. We truly sacrificed our \u200down lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s veterans minister, Alistair Carns, whose own military service included five tours including alongside American troops in Afghanistan, called \u200dTrump\u2019s claims \u201cutterly ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe shed blood, sweat and tears together. Not everybody came home,\u201d he said in a video posted on X.<\/p>\n
Richard Moore, the former head of Britain\u2019s MI6 intelligence service, said he, like many MI6 officers, had operated in dangerous environments with \u201cbrave and highly esteemed\u201d CIA counterparts and had been proud to do so with Britain\u2019s closest ally.<\/p>\n
Under NATO\u2019s founding treaty, members are bound by a collective-defense clause, Article \u200b5, which treats an attack on one member as an attack on all.<\/p>\n
It has been invoked only once \u2014 after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, when allies pledged to support \u2060the United States. For most of the war in Afghanistan, the US-led force there was under NATO command.<\/p>\n
POLISH SACRIFICE \u2018MUST NOT BE DIMINISHED\u2019<\/p>\n
Some politicians noted that Trump had avoided the draft for the Vietnam War, citing bone spurs in his feet.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump avoided military service 5 times,\u201d Ed Davey, leader of Britain\u2019s centrist Liberal Democrats, wrote on X. \u201cHow dare he question their sacrifice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Poland\u2019s sacrifice \u201cwill never be forgotten and must not be diminished,\u201d Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s comments were \u201cignorant,\u201d said Rasmus Jarlov, an opposition Conservative Party member of Denmark\u2019s parliament. In addition to the British deaths, more than 150 Canadians were killed in Afghanistan, along with 90 French service personnel and scores from Germany, Italy and other countries. Denmark \u2014 now under heavy pressure from Trump to transfer its semi-autonomous region of Greenland to the US \u2014 lost 44 troops, one of NATO\u2019s highest per-capita death rates.<\/p>\n
The United States lost about 2,460 troops in Afghanistan, according to the US Department of Defense, a figure on par per capita with those of Britain and Denmark. (Reporting by Sam \u200cTabahriti and Elizabeth Evans in London, Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen and Terje Solsvik in Oslo, Malgorzata Wojtunik in Gdansk, additional reporting by Andrew MacAskill, Muvija M and James Davey in London and Bart Meijer in Amsterdam; Writing by Sam Tabahriti; editing by Gareth Jones, Andrew Heavens, Ros \u200cRussell and Diane Craft)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called \u200bUS President Donald Trump\u2019s comments about European troops staying off the front lines in Afghanistan insulting and appalling, joining a chorus of criticism from other European officials and veterans. \u201cI consider President Trump\u2019s remarks to be insulting and frankly appalling, and I\u2019m not surprised they\u2019ve caused such hurt …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":92682,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92674"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92684,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92674\/revisions\/92684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}