Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö has said that the West has failed to create a democratic society Afghanistan after the Taliban’s swift rise to power after the exit of US and NATO forces.
In an interview, Niinistö said that the Taliban’s rise means more refugees coming to Europe along with Afghanistan once again becoming a safe haven for terrorists.
He said, “So we must take a stand on the question of how many refugees Finland and Europe can receive so that good integration can be achieved.”
The Finnish President said, “The lesson we must learn from this is that it is quite difficult to introduce a completely new social structure and social thinking to another place. It takes many generations.”
Niinistö refused to brand either the 2001 intervention or the 2021 withdrawal as a mistake saying bringing about change in society is more difficult than the West had imagined.
“I would not talk about mistakes. The conclusion is that it was a goal that was not achieved. From the beginning, there was a belief that everything would go in a good direction. Now we are faced with the truth that it is very difficult to change an entire country”, Niinistö said.
Earlier, the US President Joe Biden said the meek fall of the Afghan government “did unfold more quickly than we anticipated”, but added that he didn’t regret the decision to withdraw US troops saying nation-building was not the objective of the Afghan War.
