BRUSSELS, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte Thursday said the situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating too fast to evacuate all Dutch citizens and Afghans who assisted the NATO mission in the last 20 years.

Rutte told a press conference at the Hague that ending the evacuation mission was “most disappointing” and regretted having to leave some people behind.

Although the 118 Dutch nationals who gained entry to Kabul airport before it was closed off on Thursday were ‘safely at the airport,’ Dutch News NL portal reported him as saying.

Rutte said the terror threat at the Kabul airport had prompted the American security forces to close down European evacuation attempts.

He did not say when the plane will take people back to Netherlands would depart or how many have stayed behind.

“We, like other European countries, were overwhelmed by the speed of the Taliban takeover and made a wrong assessment of the situation,” Rutte admitted.

Contacts have also been made with regional countries like Qatar and Pakistan, he said, to see if they could help monitor the situation.

Source: Kuwait News Agency