JAKARTA - Afghanistan's ousted President Ashraf Ghani has said he supports talks between the Taliban and a former top official, while denying accusations he transferred large sums of money before leaving the country.
Speaking in a video shot in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), his first public appearance since leaving Afghanistan last Sunday, Ashraf Ghani reiterated that he was leaving to avoid more bloodshed.
In a video also posted on his Facebook page, he said he had no intention of remaining in exile and was in talks to return to Afghanistan.
He also said he was making efforts to "keep the Afghan government over our country", without giving details.
"For now, I am in the Emirates for the bloodshed and chaos to stop," said Ghani from the UAE, who confirmed on Wednesday that he was being housed there on humanitarian grounds, citing CNA Aug. 18.
He voiced support for talks held Wednesday between senior members of the Taliban movement, Ghani's predecessor Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, who led the peace process that ultimately failed.
"I want this process to be successful," he said.
Abdullah, Ghani's longtime rival, who announced the president had left the country on Sunday, indicated he would face harsh trials. However, Ghani insisted that he had left for the good of the country, and not for his own welfare.
"Don't believe anyone who tells you that your president sold you and fled for his own benefit and to save his own life. These allegations are baseless and I strongly reject them," he criticized.
"I was expelled from Afghanistan in such a way that I didn't get a chance to take off my sandals and put on my shoes," he added, noting he arrived in the UAE empty-handed.
On that occasion Ashraf Ghani claimed the Taliban had entered Kabul despite an agreement not to do so.
"Had I lived there, an elected president of Afghanistan would have been hanged again right before the very eyes of the Afghan people themselves," he said.
Ghani won Afghanistan's presidential election in 2014, after defeating his rival Abdullah Abdullah in two election rounds. Ghani came out as the winner after pocketing 3,935,567 votes or 55.27 percent.
To note, first seizing Kabul and seizing power in 1996, the Taliban then dragged former president Mohamed Najibullah from the UN office where he had taken refuge, then hanged him in a public street after torturing him.
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