{"id":6181,"date":"2021-09-16T09:40:49","date_gmt":"2021-09-16T09:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/?p=6181"},"modified":"2021-09-16T09:40:49","modified_gmt":"2021-09-16T09:40:49","slug":"khalilzad-blames-ghani-for-damaging-last-minute-deal-with-taliban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/2021\/09\/khalilzad-blames-ghani-for-damaging-last-minute-deal-with-taliban\/","title":{"rendered":"Khalilzad blames Ghani for damaging \u2018last minute deal\u2019 with Taliban"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONITORING (SW) \u2013 US envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad has blamed former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani for damaging \u2018a last-minute deal\u2019 with the Taliban designed to keep Kabul out of their control.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his first interview since the US exit from Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, who was appointed by Donald Trump in 2018 to lead talks with the Islamist insurgents, told Financial Times he had secured a two-week grace period hours before the fall of Kabul.<\/p>\n

Under the plan, Ghani was to remain in his post until a settlement on a future government was reached in Qatar, even as the Taliban stood at Kabul\u2019s doors. But the security vacuum left by Ghani\u2019s escape on August 15 prompted the Islamists to march into the Afghan capital that day, Khalilzad said. This in turn precipitated a chaotic evacuation of civilians and troops and effectively ended the talks in Doha.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven at the end, we had an agreement with the Talibs for [them] not to enter Kabul,\u201d Khalilzad told the Financial Times. He had no inkling \u201cat all\u201d that Ghani was intending to flee, he said.<\/p>\n

The US envoy\u2019s comments shed some light on the collapse of the Afghan government in its final hours and the dismay within the US administration when Kabul fell to the Taliban. They echo secretary of state Antony Blinken who told US lawmakers this week he had received assurances from Ghani on the eve of his escape that the Afghan president was on board with Washington\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n

Kabul security forces disbanded at the news of Ghani\u2019s disappearance, Khalilzad said. \u201cThere were questions of law and order in Kabul after Ghani fled\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. The Talibs [then]\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009say: \u2018Are you going to take responsibility for security of Kabul now?\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. And then you know what happened, we weren\u2019t going to take responsibility,\u201d he said, adding he attended a pre-arranged meeting that day with US regional military commander General Frank McKenzie and senior Taliban leaders in Doha.<\/p>\n

Khalilzad rejected claims of a tacit or explicit arrangement allowing the Islamists into the presidential palace on August 15. \u201cWe didn\u2019t give them any sort of green light or anything of that kind. What we said is what the mission of the US forces was,\u201d he said, referring to the airport evacuation.<\/p>\n

The US envoy to Afghanistan first discussed the standstill deal with the Kabul government on August 12 and reached an accord with the Islamists two days later to safeguard the city\u2019s integrity, according to US officials. Ghani, however, was not likely to be part of any future government because his resignation was a precondition set by the Taliban. By August 13, the Islamists were encircling Kabul after\u00a0seizing control\u00a0of most of the country.<\/p>\n

Ghani could not be reached for comment. In a video posted on Facebook from the United Arab Emirates on August 18, Ghani said he fled because his life was in danger and to \u201cprevent bloodshed\u201d in Kabul as the Taliban descended on the capital. He said he left with one change of clothes and described allegations that he absconded with looted cash as \u201cbaseless lies\u201d. On Twitter last week he said his palace security had advised him that \u201cto remain risked setting off the same horrific street-to-street fighting the city had suffered during the civil war of the 1990s\u201d.<\/p>\n

Khalilzad, a 70-year-old Republican, has come under fire for his handling of the Taliban in the past three years and\u00a0the deal he brokered in 2020\u00a0under Trump setting the terms of the US withdrawal. Critics say this accord squandered Washington\u2019s leverage in negotiations, undercut the elected government in Kabul and helped legitimise the Islamist insurgency.<\/p>\n

US president Joe Biden criticised the 2020 pact but retained the Afghan-born diplomat as top US envoy to Afghanistan \u2014 a decision that Khalilzad said surprised him \u201cat one level\u201d. In a reflection of Kabul\u2019s resentment at the deal he negotiated and expectations Biden would appoint someone else, Ghani at one point refused to meet him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was prepared, obviously, to leave,\u201d said Khalilzad.<\/p>\n

A former US ambassador to Afghanistan who has worked on the region for four decades, he blamed those before him for the limitations of his 2020 deal. He suggested successive US administrations had gradually reduced their demands as the Taliban made military gains. His 2018 appointment \u201cwas the result of what had not gone right\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201c[People] are looking for a scapegoat of some kind,\u201d he added. \u201cI\u2019m sure I could have done better \u2014 people would expect me to say that. But when I reflect I did my very best that I could, given the cards I was dealt with in the circumstances, the fundamentals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked whether he considered resigning, he said he always had a letter ready that he kept at home \u201cbecause here [in state department] somebody might take it\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the hour-long interview, Khalilzad also denied\u00a0claims\u00a0from the CIA\u2019s former regional counter-terrorism chief that he was \u201cdabbling\u201d and had overpromised in an effort to become Trump\u2019s secretary of state as \u201ctotal nonsense\u201d.<\/p>\n

The responsibility for the messy ending of America\u2019s longest war lay largely with the Afghans, he said. \u201c[T]he fact that they didn\u2019t [negotiate peace] or one side disintegrated, that\u2019s not the responsibility of the United States. It\u2019s not my responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khalilzad said he nevertheless mourned the failure to deliver a political settlement with the Taliban years earlier. \u201cThere will be a lot of soul searching,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONITORING (SW) \u2013 US envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad has blamed former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani for damaging \u2018a last-minute deal\u2019 with the Taliban designed to keep Kabul out of their control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18,5,8,4,6,7],"tags":[10,12,13,182],"class_list":["post-6181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security_","category-peace","category-politics_","category-governance","category-news_","category-afghanistan","category-headline","tag-khalilzad","tag-afghanistan","tag-taliban","tag-ashraf-ghani"],"views":601,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}