Afghanistan: Taliban seizure will challenge West - Gen Sir Nick Carter

Western governments will face difficult questions about whether to support Afghanistan if the Taliban seize control in a way that is illegitimate, the UK Chief of the Defence Staff Gen Sir Nick Carter has said.

But he told BBC World News that if the Taliban did take control of the country he did not believe they would want to be "a pariah state".

He said: "I think they don't want to become North Korea. I think they know they have got Afghan people now who have seen over the last 20 years what it might be like to have a flourishing media, a civil society, education, women at work, women in government. I think they have seen all of that.

"Now I hope in trying to govern all Afghans they will take account of those Afghans who form that civil society."

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