Thursday December 30th 2021
Criticism of the nature of the NATO withdrawal
Ex-Minister: Government in Kabul tried to escape
When the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in the summer, the leadership in the capital Kabul was prepared, says the country’s former foreign minister. He also reports on the last few days in his home country and criticizes the actions of the international troops.
According to the former Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Spanta, the Taliban’s takeover of power in Afghanistan in August did not come as a surprise to the leadership in Kabul, but had been prepared for a long time. Months before, it had been rehearsed how to evacuate the president, his wife and close associates. “These were all tried and tested things, it wasn’t that the president left the palace in a rush,” said the political scientist, who now lives in Aachen, on Deutschlandfunk.
Many politicians and observers in Kabul would have known that a collapse of the government and the republic was imminent. “That had been prepared for a long time by the president and his team, and above all by the negotiating team between the United States of America and the Taliban,” said Spanta. “But we hadn’t expected that everything would suddenly start in such a rush.”
“Withdrawal should take place responsibly”
Spanta was Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister from 2006 to 2010. He defended the withdrawal of international troops, but not the type of withdrawal. “Nobody in Afghanistan wanted the international troops to continue to be present in Afghanistan,” he said. “But the withdrawal should take place responsibly. And not without involving the Afghans, without a transfer of power or without bringing about a result without peace negotiations.” In addition, “the rulers, who were massively supported in their election fraud by some Western countries”, had prepared their escape well in advance.
Spanta himself managed to escape from Kabul with Turkish help in mid-August. His house was searched by the Taliban shortly after he made his way to the airport. “If I had had a slim chance of survival, I would have stayed in Afghanistan,” he said.
When asked whether the claim of the western states to create a democracy in Afghanistan had been a mistake, Spanta said: “Democracy is not a project that can be packaged in other countries and then transferred.” That is a process and cannot be realized in a country that has been at war for 20 years.