sentences:  A consistent presence in American media prior to the Taliban's collapse, Amin was appointed chargé d'affaires to the United States by the interim Afghan government on January 14, 2002, led by Hamid Karzai.He was the highest-ranking Afghan diplomat in Washington for a year-long period in 2002–03, before being appointed by President Karzai as his country's first Ambassador to Japan on 30 April 2004.Born in Kabul, his Tajik family fled Afghanistan one year after the Soviet invasion of 1979, eventually settling in the U.S.