Taliban meet with ex-President Karzai, Ashraf Ghani approves

Published on : 08/19/2021 – 02:02

Taliban officials met with former Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday August 18 in Kabul, the day after their commitment to work for national reconciliation in Afghanistan, a gesture that the last head of state Ashraf Ghani, who fled abroad , approved.

The Taliban, who are seeking to form a government, announced that they had “pardoned all former government officials,” Islamist monitoring group SITE said. They broadcast images of Hamid Karzai with Anas Haqqani, one of the negotiators of their movement. The Taliban also met, according to SITE, former vice-president Abdullah Abdullah.

These negotiations were welcomed by ex-President Ashraf Ghani, who rushed from his country on Sunday for the United Arab Emirates, from where he addressed his compatriots on Wednesday. “I wish the success of this process,” he said in a video message posted on Facebook, adding that he had “no intention” of remaining in exile. “I am currently in talks to return to Afghanistan,” revealed the one who succeeded Hamid Karzai in 2014.

The United States, for which “nothing” foreshadowed that the Afghan army and government would collapse so quickly, for its part repeated Wednesday that it considers that Ashraf Ghani was “no longer a person who matters. in Afghanistan “.

Difficult evacuations

At the same time, life has started to pick up in Kabul, although the fear is there. The Afghan capital was very quiet on Wednesday, with most administrations and businesses closed due to Ashura, a major Shiite religious holiday.

Many Afghans, however, continued to gather outside embassies, amid rumors about the possibility of obtaining a visa or asylum. On the ground, evacuations continued under difficult conditions.

The Pentagon, which wishes to evacuate as many people as “possible”, certainly stressed that the Islamists “facilitated the passage” to the Kabul airport of American citizens. But “we have seen information reporting that the Taliban (…) are preventing Afghans who wish to leave the country from reaching the airport,” lamented the State Department.

The European Union must welcome Afghans who are the subject of an “immediate threat”, said European Commissioner Ylva Johansson and Austria is already calling for the EU to provide for “detention centers “in countries neighboring Afghanistan for those who will be expelled from Europe.

International concerns

In a joint statement, the United States and the EU, as well as 18 other countries including Brazil and Canada, on Wednesday said they were “deeply concerned” for the rights of “women and girls in Afghanistan”.

“We are particularly concerned about the impact of the conflict on women and girls. Education is a fundamental human right and is essential for the exercise of other human rights and for the development of Afghanistan,” he said. at the same time we reacted to Unesco.

An extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers of NATO countries intended “to maintain close coordination and discuss a common approach on Afghanistan” will take place on Friday.

And while the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of an interruption in humanitarian aid, the IMF has suspended funds for Afghanistan due to the climate of uncertainty.

For the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, crimes and executions in retaliation have been committed and could amount to violations of international humanitarian law.

With AFP