“I am in the United Arab Emirates. I am currently consulting to return to Afghanistan and fight for the sovereignty of Afghanistan. I will be back soon.” Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said this in a video message, the first public statement since he fled Kabul last Sunday and was later taken by the Taliban.
Allegations that he left the country taking tens of millions of dollars with him are “baseless”, Ghani said, assuring that he left the country “empty-handed”.
“Before leaving the country, I was working with the Taliban for negotiations that would set the conditions for a peaceful transition of powers, to keep Kabul safe,” Ghani argued, reiterating that his “commitment to my fellow citizens was to to avoid a bloodbath and to ensure peace, stability and development for Afghanistan, this is my overall goal “.
“I didn’t want Kabul to start a bloodbath like in Syria or Yemen, so I decided to leave, to leave Kabul. If I had remained president of Afghanistan – he said – people would have been hanged and this would have been a terrible disaster in our history. I am not afraid of an honorable death and dishonoring Afghanistan was not acceptable to me, but I had to do it. I left Afghanistan to avoid a bloodbath and destruction. ”
“What happened 25 years ago in Afghanistan is about to repeat itself. It is something we had to avoid, a shameful development,” Ghani said. “For me the dignity of Afghanistan was important and had to be ensured, so I had to leave Afghanistan to avoid a bloodbath, to be sure of avoiding a major disaster,” he reiterated.
“When we talk about the leadership of the Taliban, it was a failure on their part and on our part that the negotiations did not lead to anything – he continued -, the peace process should lead to the end of the war”.