ISLAMABAD (AP) — Abu Dhabi carrier Etihad said Friday it is launching flights to Kabul, making it the latest airline to offer direct routes to the Afghan capital.
Etihad, which announced a record $476 million profit in 2024, said the new service responded to “growing demand” for travel between the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan and that the three weekly flights starting in December would support “trade, travel, and community ties.”
“The UAE hosts one of the largest Afghan communities in the Gulf, with around 300,000 Afghans living and working in the country, according to the Afghan Business Council,” the airline said in a statement. “The new flights will further strengthen these economic and social ties while enhancing connectivity through Abu Dhabi.”
Other international carriers flying direct to Kabul include Turkish Airlines and FlyDubai.
The oil-rich UAE has forged close ties with the Taliban-led government of Afghanistan in recent years.
In June 2024, the Emirati leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, met a top official and Cabinet member, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who had a U.S. bounty on his head over his involvement in an attack that killed an American citizen and other assaults.
A few months later, the UAE accepted the credentials of a Taliban government ambassador.
Even though the Taliban are largely isolated from the West, due to their restrictions on women and girls, they have successfully established bilateral relations with regional powers.
In July, Russia became the first country to recognize them as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. And, on Friday, India said it was upgrading its technical mission in Kabul to a full embassy.
FILE - In this Dec. 18, 2014, file photo, an Emirati man takes a selfie in front of a new Etihad Airways A380 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili, File)
NUUK, Greenland (AP) — For several weeks, international journalists and camera crews have been scurrying up to people in Greenland's capital to ask them for their thoughts on the twists and turns of a political crisis that has turned the Arctic island into a geopolitical hot spot.
President Donald Trump insists he wants to control Greenland but Greenlanders say it is not for sale. The island is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark and the prime minister of that country has warned that if the U.S. tries to take Greenland by force, it could potentially spell the end of NATO.
Greenlanders walking along the small central shopping street of the capital Nuuk have a hard time avoiding the signs that the island is near the top of the Western news agenda.
Scores of journalists have arrived from outlets including The Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, the BBC and Al Jazeera as well as from Scandinavian countries and Japan.
They film Nuuk's multicolored houses, the snowcapped hills and the freezing fjords where locals go out in small boats to hunt seals and fish. But they must try to cram their filming into about five hours of daylight — the island is in the far north and the sun rises after 11 a.m. and sets around 4 p.m.
Along the quiet shopping street, journalists stand every few meters (feet), approaching locals for their thoughts, doing live broadcasts or recording stand-ups.
Local politicians and community leaders say they are overwhelmed with interview requests.
Juno Berthelsen, MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament, called the media attention “round two,” referring to an earlier burst of global interest following Trump's first statements in 2025 that he wanted to control Greenland.
Trump has argued repeatedly that the U.S. needs control of Greenland for its national security. He has sought to justify his calls for a U.S. takeover by repeatedly claiming that China and Russia have their own designs on Greenland, which holds vast untapped reserves of critical minerals.
Berthelsen said he has done multiple interviews a day for two weeks.
“I'm getting a bit used to it,” he said.
Greenland's population is around 57,000 people —- about 20,000 of whom live in Nuuk.
“We’re very few people and people tend to get tired when more and more journalists ask the same questions again and again,” Berthelsen said.
Nuuk is so small that the same business owners are approached repeatedly by different news organizations — sometimes doing up to 14 interviews a day.
Locals who spoke to the AP said they want the world to know that it's up to Greenlanders to decide their own future and suggested they are perplexed at Trump's desire to control the island.
“It’s just weird how obsessed he is with Greenland,” said Maya Martinsen, 21.
She said Trump is “basically lying about what he wants out of Greenland,” and is using the pretext of boosting American security as a way to try to take control of “the oils and minerals that we have that are untouched.”
The Americans, Martinsen said, “only see what they can get out of Greenland and not what it actually is.”
To Greenlanders, she said, “it's home.”
“It has beautiful nature and lovely people. It’s just home to me. I think the Americans just see some kind of business trade.”
Kwiyeon Ha contributed to this report.
A journalist films in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Burrows)
An AP journalist films people sitting by the sea in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Burrows)
A journalist conducts an interview in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Burrows)
