Under the potential contract, Qatar and Turkey would manage operations at Kabul International Airport and four other airports in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s acting government has tasked the foreign ministry to set a deadline for a contract with Qatar over the operations of Afghan airports, Kabul-based Khaama Press Agency.
The office of the acting first deputy prime minister, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was quoted as saying that Qatari companies are currently running technical parts of the airport without a contract.
Qatari and Turkish technical teams were dispatched to Kabul after the completion of the withdrawal of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan on 31 August. The teams were tasked to repair parts of the Hamid Karzai International Airport to resume civilian flights.
The airport was up and running again by 9 September, when the first passenger flight departed Kabul. The Qatar Airways flight carried 113 Afghans and foreigners and landed in Qatar.
Qatar and Turkey have been engaging in trilateral talks with the acting Afghan government since late 2021 over airport operations in Afghanistan.
Qatar helps facilitate release of US aid worker from Taliban custody
Speaking to Doha News last month, the Turkish Ambassador to Qatar Mustafa Göksu said Turkey had submitted suggestions to the interim Afghan government.
“We technically and financially worked [at the airport] and provided the Taliban with a proposal that they will review and there might be a visit to Kabul soon and we are waiting for a response from the Taliban,” said Göksu.
Under the potential contract, Qatar and Turkey would manage operations at Kabul International Airport and four other airports in Afghanistan.
The matter was also discussed last month in a meeting between Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and acting Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Doha.
An agreement over the operations of Afghanistan’s airport is seen as a crucial step towards boosting the country’s economy. Afghanistan’s humanitarian situation has worsened over the past decades due to war, drought and corruption.
Former President Ashraf Ghani fled the country when the Taliban were on the outskirts of the capital city on 15 August with what reports claimed to be “tonnes of cash”. Those claims were later denied by Ghani, who is now exiled in the UAE after initially fleeing to Tajikistan.
At the time, Qatar carried out the largest airlift of people in history by evacuating at least 70,000 Afghans and foreigners.
Several countries including Germany halted aid to Afghanistan shortly after the Taliban takeover. As a key mediator, Qatar hosted talks between Western powers and the Taliban in a bid to break its isolation and provide the country with much-needed aid.
In February, US President Joe Biden ordered the release of $7 billion in Afghanistan’s funds, which were frozen following the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul.
Out of the total amount, Afghans living under dire humanitarian conditions, worsened by the US invasion, are going to receive $3.5 billion. The other half of the Afghan funds will be going towards victims of the 9/11 attack.
Afghans and activists around the world slammed the decision to split the country’s money as “theft” and “punishment” carried out by the US. The invasion left behind over 70,000 civilian casualties and destroyed the country’s infrastructure.
The UN said on 8 March that 24.4 million people in Afghanistan, more than half of the country’s population, are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.
Follow Doha News on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube
