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according to xinhua news agency in washington on september 3, michael mccaul, republican chairman of the house foreign affairs committee of the u.s. congress, summoned secretary of state blinken on the 3rd, asking him to attend a hearing held by the committee on the 19th of this month and testify on the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan.

mccaul said in a statement that day that the house foreign affairs committee is investigating the biden administration's "disastrous withdrawal" from afghanistan and asked blinken to attend relevant hearings and testify, but failed to communicate with the state department on the specific date after several attempts. in view of the state department's "continued delays and non-responses" to the foreign affairs committee's repeated requests to set a hearing date, the committee hereby issued a subpoena to blinken.

when trump was president of the united states, he promised to withdraw all u.s. troops from afghanistan by may 2021. after biden took office in january 2021, the u.s. government completed the task of withdrawing troops from afghanistan on august 30 of the same year, and the u.s. military operations in afghanistan for nearly 20 years officially ended. before the u.s. withdrawal, a suicide bombing outside kabul airport killed a large number of afghan civilians and at least 13 u.s. military personnel. trump has repeatedly criticized biden for his chaotic handling of the withdrawal from afghanistan during his tenure, and republicans in congress have also launched an investigation into this.

before the subpoena was issued, the house foreign affairs committee and the state department had been arguing for more than a year over documents related to the withdrawal of us troops from afghanistan. in february of this year, mccaul threatened that if the state department continued to "withhold" relevant documents on the withdrawal of us troops from afghanistan, blinken would face charges of contempt of congress.

the hill cited a statement from state department spokesman matthew miller, saying blinken has testified in congress more than 14 times, including four times before the foreign affairs committee, one of which focused specifically on afghanistan. miller said blinken is currently unable to testify on the date proposed by the foreign affairs committee, and the state department has proposed a reasonable alternative to meet mccaul's request for a public hearing, and the state department has provided nearly 20,000 pages of documents to the foreign affairs committee. (reporter xiong maoling)

editor: xin jing