Canadian PM: I expected Ghani’s govt to collapse, just not so quickly

Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, said in an interview with Global news that they expected the fall of the former Afghan government, but did not think it would happen so quickly.

“I have talked with a number of our allies in Europe and elsewhere who were caught extremely off guard with how quickly things got out but the intelligence was there two, three months in advance, warning that the fall was happening.

“We didn’t know it was going to be this fast, nobody knew it was going to be this fast,” said Trudeau.

However, he voiced his concerns about the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, saying that Afghans will have a difficult winter.

“It’s going to be a very difficult winter for people in Afghanistan.”

He added that Canada, along with other allies, will put pressure on the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) to allow people to leave Afghanistan.

“We are on our way to welcoming in 40,000 Afghan refugees” in the next year or two, he said.

IEA officials said that western countries are persuading Afghan youths to leave the country.

“Our people, our young generation, were encouraged by European countries as well as the United States [to leave Afghanistan]…,” said Balil Karimi, deputy spokesman for the IEA.

This comes amid an ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.