1959 in Afghanistan

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See also: 1958 in Afghanistan, other events of 1959, and 1960 in Afghanistan.

The budget estimates for September 23, 1958-September 22, 1959 (1337-38 in the Afghan calendar), amount to a revenue of 1,455,122,000 afghanis (including 521,192,000 afghanis from foreign loans) and to an expenditure of 1,455,107,962 afghanis. (The afghani is worth about five U.S. cents.) Between the fiscal years 1955-56 and 1957-58 the amounts of Afghan exports rose from 1,527,000,000 afghanis to 1,984,000,000 afghanis, the main destinations being India, the U.S.S.R., the United States, the United Kingdom, and Poland.

[edit] 1959

Emancipation of women comes about with the abolition of the veil and the chadri (the shroud-like head-to-toe gown).

[edit] February 1959

The Afghan prime minister visits New Delhi.

[edit] May 1959

The Afghan prime minister is on an official visit in Moscow, where he confers with Nikita Khrushchev. An agreement on the expansion of Soviet-Afghan economic and technical cooperation is signed on May 28. Among other things, it provides for Soviet assistance in the construction of the Kushka-Herat-Kandahar motor road, more than 740 km long.

[edit] May 1959

The reconstruction of the Kabul airport starts with Soviet help.

[edit] August 24, 1959

Speaking at Kabul on the Afghan national day, King Mohammad Zahir Shah comments, traditionally, on the problem of Pashtunistan, "still awaiting a peaceful and just solution." Mohammad Daud Khan, the prime minister, explains to the correspondent of a Japanese press agency that the Pashtun problem has existed for a century and arose when part of Afghanistan was annexed to British India - the Pakistan of today.

[edit] September 1959

Jawaharlal Nehru, the Indian prime minister, pays a return visit to Kabul.

[edit] September 1959

Mohammad Naim, Afghan foreign minister, pays an official visit to Peking.

[edit] September 1959

The Ariana Afghan Airlines extend their services from Kabul to Frankfurt, Germany, through Ankara, Turkey, and Prague, Czechoslovakia.