Weeks before the Taliban’s offensive on Kabul, a potential ceasefire deal which was still on the table could have made the transfer of power a bit easier for Afghanistan. But President Ashraf Ghani’s decision to flee the country put a lid on the arrangement.

As per the deal, the Afghan government and the Taliban tentatively reached an agreement where all parties involved would respect a two-week ceasefire, during which President Ghani would resign and pave the way for a transition government headed by the Taliban.

There was no prior reporting on this ceasefire deal being discussed in Doha, according to Bloomberg, which first broke the story about a tentative agreement between the two parties.

The agreement would have opened a way for former president Hamid Karzai along with former and current officials to broker a power-sharing deal with the Taliban.

But President Ghani’s sudden scramble to exit the country surprised his own top officials as well as the US officials negotiating in Doha.

Russian embassy's sensational claims

Based on new reporting from AP, the Russian Embassy in Kabul claimed that four cars and a helicopter full of cash accompanied President Ghani during his escape.

Russia’s state media RIA Novosti also reported the same and quoted embassy spokesperson Nikita Ishchenko as saying, “The collapse of the regime ... is most eloquently characterised by how Ghani escaped from Afghanistan: Four cars were filled with money, they tried to shove another part of the money into a helicopter, but not everything fit. And some of the money was left lying on the tarmac.”

Despite this report from the Russian state media, when asked by AP about how he knew of the details, Ishchenko gave vague answers and minimum details. AP clarified it could not verify the claims of the Russian report.

Failure of Doha Agreement

The Doha Agreement is all but over as are the peace talks, according to Anish Goel, a senior fellow from New America, which is a think-tank and “civic innovation platform.”

He was quoted as saying by Bloomberg that “the Taliban were never negotiating in good faith and there is no reason for them to start now. They have all the power in Afghanistan and clearly don’t want to share it.”

(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)