Afghanistan: “I apologize for not being able to finish otherwise” – Ashraf Ghani

Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has apologized to the Afghan people after fleeing to seek refuge in the United Arab Emirates.

“Leaving Kabul was the most difficult decision of my life,” he said, adding that he was sorry “I couldn’t have ended it differently”.

Mr. Ghani abruptly left Afghanistan as Taliban militants advanced on the capital on August 15.

He said he did not intend to abandon his people but that “it was the only way”.

He also again denied “baseless” claims that he traveled to the United Arab Emirates with around $ 169million (£ 123million).

In a statement shared on Twitter on Wednesday, Mr Ghani said he had no choice but to leave the country in order to avoid widespread violence.

“I left at the behest of palace security, who told me that staying risked triggering the same street-to-street fights the city suffered during the civil war of the 1990s,” he wrote. , adding that he had done so to “save Kabul and its six million citizens”.

He said he spent 20 years helping Afghanistan become a “democratic, prosperous and sovereign state”.

Mr. Ghani added that he “deeply and deeply regretted that my own chapter ended in a tragedy similar to that of my predecessors”.

The 72-year-old former president, who has come under heavy criticism from other Afghan politicians for leaving the country, said he would address the “events leading up to my departure” in the near future.

In a live Facebook address on August 18, Mr. Ghani said he was “forced” to leave Afghanistan by his security team because “there was a real chance that I would be captured and killed.”

He said that when the Taliban entered the presidential palace in Kabul, “they started looking for me from room to room.”

Denying the allegations that he took a large amount of money with him when he left the country, Mr. Ghani said he was “not even allowed to take off my sandals and put on my shoes.”

Earlier this week, the Taliban, who took control of Afghanistan in a massive offensive more than three weeks ago, announced the formation of an all-male interim government to rule the country.

On Wednesday, dozens of women in Kabul and Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province in northeastern Afghanistan protested the new cabinet, saying they would not accept a government without female ministers.