KABUL: President Ashraf Ghani has left Afghanistan for Tajikistan as Taliban closes in on Kabul, according to the country’s top peace negotiator Abdullah Abdullah.
Ghani’s departure comes amid negotiations for a peaceful transfer of power after Taliban fighters encircled Kabul after capturing 26 of the country’s 34 provincial capitals in less than two weeks.
“The former Afghan president has left the nation,” Abdullah, the head of the High Council for National Reconciliation, said in a video on his Facebook page. Asked for comment, the president’s office said it “cannot say anything about Ashraf Ghani’s movement for security reasons”.
A representative of the Taliban, which entered the capital Kabul earlier on Sunday, said the group was checking on Ghani’s whereabouts.
The news first came to the fore when Afghan news outlet TOLO News cited sources as saying Ghani has left Afghanistan. It is not yet clear whether he has resigned as president.
Breaking – Sources said President Ghani has left the country. pic.twitter.com/4bOgsSlzRR
— TOLOnews (@TOLOnews) August 15, 2021
Mr Ghani has come under increasing pressure to resign as major cities around Afghanistan have fallen to Taliban militants over the course of 10 days.
The Taliban has entered the outskirts of the Afghan capital and said they were awaiting a peaceful transfer of the city after promising not to take it by force as the United States evacuated diplomats from its embassy by helicopter.
According to the Associated Press, three Afghan officials said the fighters were in the districts of Kalakan, Qarabagh and Paghman in the capital. Another senior official told Reuters the Taliban were coming in “from all sides” but gave no further details.
Reports from the Afghanistan media state that negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government are taking place inside the ARG Presidential Palace in Kabul, as Taliban fighters wait at Kabul’s gates for further instructions.
Abdullah Abdullah, the head of Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation, is acting as the arbitrator in the negotiations. Former Afghan ambassador to Germany, Ali Ahmad Jalali, has been appointed as the head of the new interim government in Afghanistan, reported Afghan media.
Meanwhile, CNN reported that a high-level Afghan government delegation will travel to Doha “soon” for talks with the Taliban.
“The situation is changing by the minute but we could expect an Afghan government delegation that has more power and authority to travel to Doha soon,” a source privy to the intra-Afghan negotiations told CNN.
