Some 273 Turks were flown from Kabul to Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, by a Turkish Armed Forces A400M plane, also known as a "flying fortress." They subsequently flew to Istanbul on a Turkish Airlines plane on Aug. 18.

Rafet Gürbüz, a Turkish businessman, said they were sent off by the Turkish ambassador in Kabul and welcomed well in Islamabad. 

"Apart from that, our commander in Kabul also paid a lot of attention to us. We are civilian businesspeople working there. We didn't have any problems... I do not believe that any Turkish citizens will stay there," he said.

Noting that no Turkish citizen had any hard time there, Gürbüz said: "The system makes the strong people of a strong country being noticed. We are lucky citizens of a strong country." 

Flights were suspended at Afghanistan's main international airport in Kabul on Aug. 16, as crowds of people anxiously waited at its gates in hopes of leaving the country.

A day after Afghanistan's capital fell to the Taliban, U.S. and Afghan forces surrounded the airport, along with Taliban fighters, as gunshots were fired into the air to disperse the crowd.