 The United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken says Washington is assessing whether the Taliban is serious about ending the conflict in Afghanistan, and that trying to take back the country by force was not consistent with peace efforts. Blinken, who was visiting Paris acknowledged attacks on Afghan security forces were increasing before planned talks, and Washington between President Joe Biden and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Ghani's former political opponent, Abdullah Abdullah. The peace process has stood as Afghan security forces battle a Taliban Spring offensive that threatened several provincial capitals. Now ethnic militias have been mobilized to help the government's troops. We're looking very carefully at the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, and we're also looking very hard at whether the Taliban is at all serious about a peaceful resolution to the conflict. We continue to be engaged on the diplomacy, but actions that would try to take the country by force are of course totally inconsistent with finding a peaceful resolution. We are anxious to be able to restore travel as fully and as quickly as possible. We're very much guided by the science, by our medical experts. That has to be the foundational principle on which we're looking at this. We have a working group established with the European Union on this question, and all I can tell you, I can't put a date on it, I can tell you we're working very actively on this right now, and we are like France, like our other partners in Europe, both anxious and looking forward to restoring travel. But we have to be guided by the science, we have to be guided by medical expertise.