Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks for the first time since exile in the United Arab Emirates | His flight from Kabul precipitated the Taliban’s seizure of power

Afghanistan’s ousted President Ashraf Ghani speaks for the first time since exile in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), after the UAE Foreign Ministry confirmed receiving the former Afghan leader. The ex-president made a live broadcast on his Facebook account and once again justified that his flight before the Taliban entered the capital Kabul was “To avoid the bloodshed”. Ghana too denied allegations of corruption which circulated in the media about the departure of the Afghan leader with approximately 170 million dollars. He also assured that he was in consultations to return to the country he led from 2014 until last Sunday.

“I didn’t want the bloodshed to start in Kabul like in Syria and Yemen. So I decided to go, to leave Kabul. If I had remained President of Afghanistan, people would have been hanged and it would have been a terrible disaster for our history.“, he assured.

Since he fled Afghanistan before the Taliban took control of Kabul and the presidential palace, Ghani’s whereabouts are unknown. It was assumed that he could be in Tajikistan, on the northern border of Afghanistan, it was also thought that he would have reached Uzbekistan, or even Oman.

“I am not afraid of an honorable death and dishonoring Afghanistan was not acceptable to me, but I had to do it. They took me out to avoid bloodshed and destruction.”He added in a message posted this Wednesday on his Facebook account.

“Cars full of money”

The former president also referred to the accusations of Afghan Ambassador to Tajikistan Mohammed Zahir Agbar, who denounced Ghani’s departure from the country with money from the national treasury. Agbar accused him of stealing $ 169 million. The ousted leader said it was enough to speak with “customs officials and other authorities” to verify that these accusations are “completely unfounded” and only seek his “political death” and destroy his reputation.

However, Russian news agency RIA reported that the Russian Embassy reported that Ghani fled last Monday in a helicopter loaded with cash. “Four cars were full of money, they tried to put another part of the money in a helicopter, but not all of them fit. And part of the money was thrown on the track.”, noted Nikita Ischehnko, spokesperson for the Russian Embassy in Kabul.

Exilio in UAE

UAE diplomacy confirmed on Wednesday that it had received former President Ghani in his country, after days when it was not known where the former president was, although he left a post on his Facebook account explaining that ‘he had made the decision to leave since, according to him, the Taliban were ready to attack Kabul to overthrow it.

“The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation can confirm that the UAE has welcomed President Ashraf Ghani and his family to the country on humanitarian grounds.They assured in a brief statement published on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The UAE government has not specified how Ghani came to be or his future in the country.

Conversations without Ghani

The Taliban are currently in talks with the former president Hamid Karzai and the main representative in the Doha peace dialogue, To contact Abdallah negotiate a possible transitional government with the local authorities.

On the other hand, Ghani assured that he is currently in consultations to return to Afghanistan. Even if The United States reaffirmed that it does not see the ousted president as a figure of weight which can stabilize the current situation. “He is no longer an important person in Afghanistan”told reporters on Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who declined to comment on the UAE’s decision to grant him asylum.

Ghani, 72, is a former US citizen but gave up his passport to run for the Afghan presidency in 2009. The former president returned to Afghanistan in 2001, a few months after the September 11 attacks in the United States. He was president since 2014, then re-elected in September 2019, although he was not sworn in for his second term until March 2020.