AT News KABUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that his country does not have “the luxury” of turning its back on Afghanistan. “It is our common wish that Afghanistan achieves lasting peace and stability,” Erdogan told a meeting of the Parliamentary Union of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation …
Read More »Trump asked Khalilzad if US could offer Taliban money in return of cooperation
AT News KABUL: In August 2019, then-President Donald Trump asked his special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, if the US could give money to the Taliban to ensure they adhered to his administration’s demands amid ongoing peace talks, according to a New Yorker report. Among other demands, the Trump administration wanted …
Read More »EU ready to take 38,000 Afghans
AT News KABUL: Fifteen European Union countries have pledged to offer protection to nearly 40,000 people from Afghanistan. Germany alone has agreed to take in more than half of the evacuees. The European Union’s Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, announced after a meeting of the bloc’s interior ministers on Thursday …
Read More »US commander says al-Qaeda, ISIS recruiting in Afghanistan
AT News KABUL: US General McKenzie, commander of Central Command, has warned that Al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorist networks have been growing in Afghanistan. During an interview with the Associated Press, Gen. McKenzie talked broadly about US strategies in Middle Eastern countries, including the growth of Al-Qaida and ISIS in Afghanistan …
Read More »India sends life-saving medicines to Afghanistan in aid
AT News India on Saturday sent its first tranche of humanitarian aid, including 1.6 metric tonnes of life-saving medicines, to Afghanistan since its takeover by the Taliban in August. The medical supplies reached Kabul from Delhi on a return flight that had brought 10 Indians and 94 Afghans from the war-torn nation …
Read More »Afghanistan sees drastic rise in opium trade
AT News KABUL: Poppy cultivation has increased by more than 8 percent as an estimated 6,800 tons of opium were produced in Afghanistan in the last harvest season which ended in July. A report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said that Afghanistan accounts for 85% of global …
Read More »Donors support transfer of $280m fund to Afghanistan
AT News KABUL: International donors have agreed to transfer $280m from a frozen trust fund to the World Food Program and UNICEF to help avert famine in Afghanistan, the World Bank said as it seeks to help a country facing famine and economic freefall. The World Bank-administered Afghan Reconstruction Trust …
Read More »Turkish firms undertake huge power projects in Afghanistan
AT News KABUL: Turkish construction companies operating in Afghanistan are earning praise for their state-of-the-art projects in Afghanistan, which currently needs such developmental projects as well as investment. “We highly value the work of this Turkish company,” said Mujiburrahman Omar, Taliban administration’s interim deputy minister for energy and water, during …
Read More »Politics was priority during Kabul evacuations; UK official
AT News KABUL: An official in UK’s Foreign Office has berated the British government’s handling of Afghanistan evacuation as “unforgivable”, claiming ministers were more focused on media coverage and “the political fallout” than saving lives. The civil servant, who requested anonymity, told BBC Two’s Newsnight that “trauma and suffering”, was …
Read More »ICG warns of mass starvation in Afghanistan
AT News KABUL: The International Crisis Group (ICG) in a newly published report said that if the international community does not scale up economic support, more Afghans may die of hunger and starvation in the current crisis than from the fighting in the past 20 years. “Hunger and destitution following …
Read More »