Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has left Afghanistan, where the Taliban are poised to take power, former Vice President Abdullah Abdullah said on Sunday. “The former Afghan president has left the nation,” Abdullah Abdullah, who is also the head of the High Council for National Reconciliation, said in a video posted on his Facebook page.
The Taliban want to take control of power in Afghanistan “in the next few days” through a “peaceful” transfer, one of their spokesmen told the BBC on Sunday, as his troops surrounded the capital.
“In the next few days, we want a peaceful transfer” of power, said Suhail Shaheen, a Qatar-based spokesman with a group involved in the negotiations. He outlined the main political lines envisaged by the Taliban with a view to returning the radical Islamist movement to power, 20 years after it was expelled by international forces after the attacks of September 11, 2001. “We want an inclusive Islamic government, which it means that all Afghans will be represented in this government, “Suhail Shaheen said,” we will talk about it in the future, when the peaceful transition has taken place. “
Putting aside the fears of a return of the country to the era of the first Taliban government, with a very strict application of Islamic rules, Suhail Shaheen declared that the Taliban now wanted to open “a new chapter” of tolerance.
“We want to work with all Afghans, we want to open a new chapter of peace, tolerance, with peaceful coexistence and national unity for the country and the people of Afghanistan,” Suhail Shaheen continued.
The group’s spokesman also assured that international embassies and their employees will not be targeted by Taliban fighters and that they must remain in the country. “There is no risk for diplomats, humanitarian organizations, nobody. Everyone should continue to work as they have done so far. They will not harm them, they must stay, ”he insisted. But in the Afghan capital, many embassies have already been evacuated.
Staff from the US embassy in Kabul have been rushed to the airport in the Afghan capital, where thousands of US troops have been dispatched, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday. For its part, Canada has temporarily closed its embassy in Kabul. “It was decided to temporarily suspend our diplomatic activities in Kabul,” the Canadian authorities said in a statement specifying that activities would resume when the situation “allows us to guarantee adequate services and adequate security for our personnel.” Dutch embassy staff were also evacuated last night and are now operating from a location near the airport in the Afghan capital, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.
Russia, for its part, is not planning such a thing. “No evacuation is planned,” said Zamir Kabulov, Kremlin envoy for Afghanistan, quoted by the Interfax agency, noting that he was “in direct contact” with the Russian ambassador in Kabul whose collaborators continued to work “calmly” at the embassy. . .