Ghani also denied allegations that he transferred large sums of money out of the country before fleeing to the United Arab Emirates.
Noting that he supports talks between the Taliban and top former officials, former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Wednesday denied allegations that he transferred large sums of money out of the country before fleeing to the United Arab Emirates.
Making his first appearance since fleeing the war-torn country after the Taliban captured Kabul, Ghani reiterated that he had left in order to spare the country more bloodshed.
In a recorded video message broadcast on his Facebook page, Ghani said he had no intention of remaining in exile in the Gulf nation and was “in talks” to return home.
He was making efforts to “safeguard the rule of Afghans over our country”, Ghani said, without offering details.
UAE, on Wednesday, had confirmed that Ghani was being hosted there on “humanitarian grounds”.
Reiterating the same, Ghani said: “For now, I am in the Emirates so that bloodshed and chaos is stopped.”
The former President also extended his support to talks held Wednesday between senior members of the Taliban movement, Ghani’s predecessor Hamid Karzai, and Abdullah Abdullah, who headed the ultimately failed peace process.
“I want the success of this process,” Ghani stressed.
Though Ghani’s long-standing rival Abdullah had announced on Sunday that the president had left the country and he would be judged harshly, Ghani insisted he had left for the good of the country, and not his own wellbeing.
“Do not believe whoever tells you that your president sold you out and fled for his own advantage and to save his own life,” he said. “These accusations are baseless… and I strongly reject them.”
“I was expelled from Afghanistan in such a way that I didn’t even get the chance to take my slippers off my feet and pull on my boots,” he added, noting that he had arrived in the Emirates “empty-handed”.
The Taliban had entered Kabul despite an agreement not to do so, Ghani claimed.
“Had I stayed there, an elected president of Afghanistan would have been hanged again right before the Afghans’ own eyes,” he stressed, in a reference to the killing of former communist president Mohammed Najibullah in 1996.
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