1400: A tumultuous year for Afghanistan politics

From the collapse of intra-Afghan peace talks to the Islamic Emirate’s return to power, 1400 was filled with major political events.

On 11 Hamal, (March 31) a crucial summit on peace was scheduled to start in Turkey, a meeting that was at the time dubbed the second Bonn conference.

However, the summit failed to take place due to disputes within the ranks of the former government and a disagreement over the agenda.

Peace negotiations between the IEA and an Afghan delegation in Doha also failed to provide results and collapsed in the month of Saratan (July).

A visit to Doha by former Afghan president Hamid Karzai and his delegation also ran into problems and was called off just one day before the collapse of the former government.

At the time, sources from the presidential palace said the delegation had beern barred from travelling by then president Ashraf Ghani.

On 24 Asad (August 15), the Western-backed government collapsed without warning after 20 years. Ghani and many other high-ranking government officials fled the country just hours before the IEA swept into Kabul and took over.

Ghani’s desertion was confirmed and announced by former CEO Abdullah Abdullah and days later it emerged the former president had flown to the UAE.

As IEA forces entered the presidential palace, its leaders celebrated what they called a victory against the United States and the West.

However, the world was shaken by the Republic’s sudden collapse.

What followed was a chaotic evacuation process of foreign troops, diplomats and foreign workers – along with tens of thousands of Afghans.

Since then, world alliances and international organizations such as the United Nations, the European Union and NATO have held emergency meetings on Afghanistan. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) also held a meeting on Afghanistan in Pakistan.

The UN has since scrambled to help ward off a major humanitarian crisis in the country, while the United States has defended its position after having come under fire for the way it handled the situation.

For the IEA’s part, it has appealed to the international community to work with them and the new order immediately brought about a semblance of security.