A Republican-led U.S. congressional committee recommended on Tuesday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken be held in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena seeking information about the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee voted 26-25 in favor of a report recommending that the full House find Blinken in contempt after he did not appear at a hearing on Tuesday morning on the withdrawal.

Blinken, who is in New York for the UN General Assembly, said in a letter on Sunday to the committee's chairman, Republican Representative Michael McCaul, that he had tried to reach an accommodation on when he would be available to testify and offered alternative witnesses.

McCaul said before the vote that Blinken had declined to appear any time this month. "I offered any day in September, just a few hours in September. The secretary couldn't find one day, he couldn't find one hour to come before the United States Congress," McCaul said.