Will return, says Ghani in his first video since fleeing Kabul

After fleeing from Kabul, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani released a video in which he defended his decision to flee Kabul in the face of the Taliban advance, describing it as the only way to prevent bloodshed. He also denied claims by his country's ambassador to Tajikistan that he had stolen millions of dollars from state funds.

Dubai: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Wednesday defended his decision to flee Kabul in the face of the Taliban advance, describing it as the only way to prevent bloodshed. Ghani, who has taken refuge in the UAE, said that he is now in talks to return to Afghanistan and denied the allegation that he left Kabul with suitcases full of cash, a media report said.

"I didn't want the bloodshed to commence in Kabul as it had in Syria and Yemen. So I decided to go, to leave Kabul," CNN quoted Ghani as saying on Wednesday. "If I had stayed the President of Afghanistan, people would have been hanged and this would have been a dreadful disaster in our history. I am not fearful of an honourable death, and dishonouring Afghanistan was not acceptable to me, but I had to. I was taken out of Afghanistan to avoid bloodshed and the destruction of Afghanistan," he added, CNN reported.

Ghani posted a video on his Facebook page late on Wednesday confirming that he was in the United Arab Emirates. He thanked Afghan security forces in his message, but also said that the failure of the peace process led to the Taliban snatching power. "The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation can confirm that the UAE has welcomed President Ashraf Ghani and his family into the country on humanitarian grounds," the UAE's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said in a statement.

He also indirectly tried to quash an accusation by Afghanistan's ambassador to Tajikistan that he had stolen USD 169 million from state funds. He claimed that he was "forced to leave Afghanistan with one set of traditional clothes, a vest and the sandals I was wearing". "Accusations were charged in these days that money was transferred, these accusations are fully baseless," he said. Ghani left Afghanistan on Sunday just as the Taliban approached Kabul.

The Russian Embassy in Kabul, too, had alleged that Ghani left Kabul with four cars and a helicopter stuffed with cash. "As for the collapse of the regime, it is most eloquently characterised by the way Ghani fled from Afghanistan: four cars were full of money, they tried to put part of the money into a helicopter, but everything did not fit. And some of the money was left on the runway", Sputnik had quoted Russian diplomatic mission spokesperson Nikita Ishenko as saying.

AP/ANI