Eight Afghans have applied so far for asylum in Slovakia, after being evacuated from Afghanistan by a special military plane. They were placed in the camp in Humenné, Eastern Slovakia where they are quarantined and subjected to an asylum procedure. All those evacuated from Afghanistan were checked by Slovak security forces, Foreign Minister Ivan Korčok announced on Thursday.
Prime Minister Eduard Heger (OLaNO) said on Monday that the Government has decided to grant asylum to ten Afghan citizens who have worked very intensively with EU-member states in recent years. Meanwhile, Slovak Foreign Minister Ivan Korčok (a Freedom and Solidarity/SaS nominee) said at a press conference on Tuesday that the number of ten Afghans "isn't carved in stone".
"I agree that Slovakia should accept ten Afghans who have been helpful to our country, potentially along with their families. As for further aid, I expect refugee camps to be set up in countries neighbouring Afghanistan in the near future, and those camps will need various things to allow them to operate. Slovakia could help with that without any problems. However, I don't see even a hint of a solution in the granting of mass asylum," said Richard Sulik, the chair of the junior coalition SaS party and Economy Minister, on Wednesday.
The We Are Family party thinks that accepting ten Afghans is "richly" sufficient, Parliamentary Chair and party leader Boris Kollár told TASR press agency on Wednesday, adding that his party does not want this number to be increased.
The For the People party, another junior member of the coalition, believes that helping the inhabitants of a country controlled by Islamists will pose an extremely difficult challenge over the next few months - "at least until it becomes clear how the country is going to be run, and whether even any of the most basic human rights will be upheld, such as access to education for girls and women, which we consider to be one of the most urgent issues," reads a party statement.
It is our duty to take care of the Afghans who have helped Slovak entities such as the army and organisations working there, and there may be more than ten such people, said head of the extra-parliamentary Voice-SD party and former Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini on Wednesday - rejecting, however, the idea of a widespread redistribution of refugees based on quotas.
Head of the opposition Smer-SD party Robert Fico reiterated that the situation in Afghanistan is an example of one of the failures of NATO and the United States. "The most significant shift in Afghanistan will be if the Taliban, whatever it is, ensures stability in the country, allowing the country to basically function," he told a news conference on Tuesday, adding that when it comes to migration, negotiations with the Taliban must be entered into.
