ISLAMABAD (AP) – The
Taliban announced a deal Tuesday allowing an Emirati company to manage three airports in Afghanistan after the fall of the country’s U.S.-backed government.
Under the deal, the Abu Dhabi-based firm GAAC Solutions would manage the airports in Herat, Kabul and Kandahar, the Taliban said. They held a news conference in Kabul in which they signed the deal with an individual they identified as a managing director for GAAC.
Ghulam Jelani Wafa, the Taliban’s acting deputy transportation and civil aviation minister, signed the accord. Also on hand was Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban-appointed deputy prime minister, who described the arrangement as renewing an airport ground-handling agreement with the UAE.
However, the deal left more questions than answers, particularly as Qatar and Turkey had been in line to run the airports, though the deal apparently broke down over requirements on having their own security personnel on hand at the airports.
Qatar has already has agreed to represent the United States in Taliban-run Afghanistan following the closure of the American Embassy in Kabul and withdrawal of all U.S. forces from the country in late August. Meanwhile, Qatar Airways had been running flights to evacuate American citizens out of Afghanistan since the takeover.
The Taliban did not discuss the deal’s terms with the UAE, which has had strained relations with both Turkey and Qatar in recent years though tensions have recently eased.
The agreement was reached “after long negotiations,” Baradar said, hoping that the development would encourage international investment in Afghanistan to ease the country’s “suffering.”
“This will open the door for other countries” to invest, he said at the signing, while adding that “all countries that are interested in investment in Afghanistan, we can guarantee their security,” he was quoted as saying.
During the chaotic evacuation of the U.S.-led foreign forces from the airport in Kabul last August, critical machineries such as radar and communications equipment were destroyed, forcing nearly all international commercial airlines to suspend flights to Afghanistan for more than nine months.
The handover of control of the facility to a company with the technological expertise to repair and operate an international airport could be the first step toward the resumption of foreign flights, reports say.