The commander made the call in a recent military exercise conducted in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif…reports Asian Lite News
Afghanistan’s acting air force commander Mawlawi Amanudin Mansoor has called on the pilots who served under the previous government to return to work and join the current air force.
The commander made the call in a recent military exercise conducted in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Xinhua news agency reported.
Mansoor was quoted by local media Tolo News as saying the pilots who were trained and served under the previous government and the pilots who had fled the country should return and they would be recruited back into the air force.
“We request that those who have fled the country return and serve their people,” the commander said.
“In the near future, we will collect information from all the airports to see how many active and damaged choppers we have, and also how many pilots we have who are willing to work and how many are not,” Mansoor said.
Hundreds of Afghan air force personnel, including pilots, co-pilots and technicians, left Afghanistan following the takeover of the country by the Taliban and the US forces’ withdrawal from the country in August.
Opening of foreign embassies
The Taliban on Thursday said that it expects that the embassies of a number of foreign countries will open in Kabul until the end of the year.
“We expect the embassies’ opening until the next year but I cannot point to these countries,” Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem told Sputnik.
Three months after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, the outfit is taking halting steps to pursue international legitimacy.
Earlier this week, US Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West held a discussion with senior Taliban representatives and technocratic professionals in Doha, Qatar.
The two sides discussed the international community’s ongoing and urgent response to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, and the U.S. delegation pledged to continue to support UN and humanitarian actors’ efforts to scale up to meet life-saving needs this coming winter.
Taliban delegation has asked the US administration to unfreeze Kabul’s financial assets enabling it to function as the government as it faces a tough economic crisis.
Meanwhile, the international community called on the Taliban to ensure the rights of minority and women as a precondition to any kind of recognition. (ANI)