Acceptance –
News Afghan president flees with money to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) blows hard. Ashraf Ghani is known to have fled after the Taliban took control of the capital Kabul.
It is understood Ghani fled just as the Taliban began to enter the Afghan capital without any resistance. Earlier Associated Press reports said Ghani left Kabul quietly without telling other political leaders.
Reported by Reuters, Ghani’s flight to the UAE was conveyed by the Russian Embassy. The Russian embassy said it would maintain a diplomatic presence in Kabul and hoped to develop ties with the Taliban, although it said it would not rush to recognize them as rulers and observe their behavior.
“Regarding the collapse of the (Afghan government) regime, it was most clearly marked by the way Ghani fled Afghanistan,” said Nikita Ishchenko, a spokeswoman for the Russian Embassy in Kabul, as quoted by the RIA news agency.
“Four cars full of money, they tried to put some other money into a helicopter, but not all of them fit. And a number of people were left lying on the tarmac,” Ishchenko said, referring to the way Ghani fled his country.
Separately, President Vladimir Putin’s special representative for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, said it was unclear how much money the Ghani government was leaving behind.
“I hope the runaway government doesn’t take all the money from the state budget. It will be the basis of the budget if there is any left,” Kabulov told Russian local radio Ekho Moskvy.
In his first video message after fleeing, Ghani denied allegations that he transferred large sums of money out of Afghanistan before going abroad. He even only brought clothes and sandals.
“I was expelled from Afghanistan in such a way that I didn’t have time to take my sandals off my feet and put on my boots,” Ghani said, emphasizing that he arrived in the UAE ’empty hands’.
He also said he wanted to return and expressed support for talks between the Taliban and top Afghan officials. In his explanation, Ghani reiterated that he left Kabul to avoid bloodshed and was accommodated in the UAE for humanitarian reasons.
Ghani claimed that the Taliban continued to enter Kabul despite an agreement not to do so. “If I stay, an elected president of Afghanistan will be hanged once again right before the eyes of the Afghan people,” he said.
It is known that when the Taliban seized power in Kabul in 1996, they dragged former President Mohammed Najibullah from the United Nations (UN) office where he was hiding and hanged him in the public streets after torturing him.
Also watch the video ‘President of Afghanistan: I Never Meant to Run away’:
(izt / imk)
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