The New York Times reports:

American negotiators are trying to extract assurances from the Taliban that they will not attack the U.S. Embassy in Kabul if the extremist group takes over the country’s government and ever wants to receive foreign aid, three American officials said.

The effort, led by Zalmay Khalilzad, the chief American envoy in talks with the Taliban, seeks to stave off a full evacuation of the embassy as they rapidly seize cities across Afghanistan. On Thursday, the State Department announced it was sending home an unspecified number of the 1,400 Americans stationed at the embassy and drawing down to what the agency’s spokesman, Ned Price, described as a “core diplomatic presence” in Kabul.

The embassy also urged Americans who were not working for the U.S. government to immediately leave Afghanistan on commercial flights. The Taliban’s march has put embassies in Kabul on high alert for a surge of violence in coming months, or even weeks, and forced consulates and other diplomatic missions in the country to shut down.

American diplomats are now trying to determine how soon they may need to fully evacuate the embassy should the Taliban prove to be more bent on destruction than a détente.

“Let me be very clear about this: The embassy remains open,” Mr. Price said on Thursday. “And we plan to continue our diplomatic work in Afghanistan.”

Mr. Price said the heightened pace of the Taliban’s rout, leading to increased violence and instability across Afghanistan, was of “grave concern.”

“So given the situation on the ground, this is a prudent step,” he said.

Five current and former officials described the mood inside the embassy as increasingly tense and worried, and diplomats at the State Department’s headquarters in Washington noted a sense of depression at the specter of closing it, nearly 20 years after U.S. Marines reclaimed the burned-out building in December 2001.

Several people gloomily revived a comparison that all wanted to avoid: the fall of Saigon in 1975, when Americans stationed at the U.S. Embassy were evacuated from a rooftop by helicopter.

The fears underscore what was unfathomable just a few years ago, when thousands of American forces were in Afghanistan and the U.S. Embassy in Kabul hosted one of the largest diplomatic staffs in the world.

Mr. Khalilzad is hoping to convince Taliban leaders that the embassy must remain open, and secure, if the group hopes to receive American financial aid and other assistance as part of a future Afghan government. The Taliban leadership has said it wants to be seen as a legitimate steward of the country, and is seeking relations with other global powers, including Russia and China, in part to receive economic support. [Continue reading…]