Can not throw away accountability: Ex-mayor of Kabul continues to run town below Taliban

A month has handed because the Taliban took over Kabul on August 15 following a lightning army marketing campaign. Just about all participants of the erstwhile US-backed govt have both left the rustic or relinquished their posts in concern of the militants. On the other hand, Daoud Sultanzoy, the 66-year-old ex-mayor of Kabul, continues to go back to his place of job.

Daoud Sultanzoy, a former US citizen, now stocks his place of job with Hamidullah Nomani, the Taliban’s new caretaker administrator of Kabul. Nomani served because the Afghan capital’s mayor and a cupboard minister within the first Taliban regime.

In an interview with the Wall Boulevard Magazine, Sultanzoy stated whilst he isn’t concerned within the politics of the Taliban, he has made up our minds to stick with his task as he feels “accountable to the folk of Kabul”.

“This can be a accountability that you can’t throw away calmly since you simply say, ‘Oh, I don’t like those folks’,” the Wall Boulevard Magazine quoted him as pronouncing.

An afternoon after the autumn of Kabul, the Taliban contacted Sultanzoy to proceed along with his publish and warranted his safety. His go back to place of job ensured that some essential municipal services and products, equivalent to trash assortment and sanitation, remained uninterrupted amid the chaos of transition.

A US citizen who returned to Afghanistan

Sultanzoy first got here to The us within the 1970s to check aviation on the College of Miami. After the United States invasion of Afghanistan publish 9/11 assaults, Sultanzoy returned to Afghanistan to constitute his circle of relatives’s area, now a part of the southeastern Ghazni province, within the new Afghan parliament.

In 2014, Sultanzoy unsuccessfully contested the presidential elections and needed to surrender his US passport for it. His spouse and kids proceed to stay Americans and toughen his resolution to stick in Kabul.

Learn | Taliban appoint deputy ministers in all-men Afghanistan govt

“Relinquished, no longer renounced,” Sultanzoy stated about his citizenship. “The us has been just right to me, and I don’t surrender anything else.”

Sultanzoy used to be appointed as Kabul mayor in 2020 through then president Ashraf Ghani.

‘Now not serving to Taliban’

Requested whether or not his proceeding carrier helped legitimise the Taliban rule, Sultanzoy denied. “I’m really not serving to. I used to be assigned to serve this town, and I’m nonetheless serving this town,” he informed the Wall Boulevard Magazine.

He additionally stated that the Taliban are extra tolerant now. “I’m really not pronouncing I’ve met everyone, I’m certain there are different parts. However the ones I’ve met are very well mannered, very figuring out,” he stated.

Hamidullah Nomani, the brand new caretaker administrator of Kabul, agreed that the Taliban want the abilities of pros like Sultanzoy to run the rustic.

Additionally Learn | Will go back and toughen Taliban-led Afghanistan executive if…: Former Afghan minister

“Someone who has served in truth and has a just right report, and that comes with the mayor, the deputy mayor and different administrators, they’re all our pals, we have now no longer introduced any trade to those positions,” the Wall Steet Magazine quoted him as pronouncing.

“Our arrival right here wasn’t aiming to prevent the paintings below approach. So long as the paintings proceeds easily, we can paintings in combination and handle this friendship,” he added.

Money crunch

The brand new Taliban govt faces a serious money crunch state of affairs. Final month, the United States and allies iced over round $Nine billion in Afghanistan’s central-bank reserves and suspended get entry to to global lenders.

The placement used to be already dangerous below the Ashraf Ghani-led govt as no person, together with Sultanzoy, has gained a wage for the previous 3 months.

Sultanzoy stated he had deliberate an inventory of infrastructure tasks for Kabul which now face uncertainty.

“None of those plans are going forward now as a result of we’re within the section the place we need to revisit the entirety and notice what the brand new political management does,” Sultanzoy informed the Wall Boulevard Magazine.

(Inputs from Wall Boulevard Magazine)

Additionally Learn | SAARC international ministers’ meet cancelled after Pakistan insists on Taliban participation