LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's ambassador to Afghanistan, Laurie Bristow, said on Saturday that the time had come to end an airlift which had evacuated almost 15,000 Afghan and British citizens over the past two weeks.

       "It's time to close this phase of the operation down but we haven't forgotten the people who still need to leave, and we will do everything we can to help them," he said in a statement at Kabul airport released by Britain's foreign ministry.

       (Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Angus MacSwan)