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“The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation can confirm that the UAE has accepted President Ashraf Ghani and his family on a humanitarian basis,” the brief said.
Ghani fled Afghanistan on Sunday when the Taliban approached Kabul and then occupied the capital without resistance.
In a statement posted on Facebook, Ghani acknowledged that “the Taliban had won” and that he had fled to avoid “bloodshed.”
Until Wednesday the whereabouts of the ousted president were unknown. It has been speculated that he may have gone to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan or Oman.
For the first time, the oil-rich UAE is reaching out to former leaders and their loved ones who have become undesirable in their countries.
In 2017, Dubai hosted former Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who was sentenced to five years in prison in his own country.
King Juan Carlos of Spain, who abdicated the throne, also withdrew to the United Arab Emirates last year when questions arose about the origin of his assets. Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto also lived in the country for eight years, but then returned to her country and was assassinated in 2007.
The UAE is one of three countries, including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, that formally recognize the former Taliban regime that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
