KABUL: Afghanistan’s central bank criticised Washington’s plan to use half the bank’s $7 billion in frozen assets on US soil for humanitarian aid and set aside the rest to possibly satisfy lawsuits over the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
US administration officials said on Friday they would work to ensure access to $3.5 billion of the assets would benefit the Afghan people, amid calls for the money to be used to address a deepening economic crisis since the Taliban seized power last year.
The other half of the funds would remain in the United States, subject to ongoing litigation targeting the Taliban, including by relatives of those who died in the Sept. 11 attacks, the officials said.
Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) criticised the decision, saying its assets had been invested in the United States in line with international practices, and belonged to the people of Afghanistan.
“DAB considers the latest decision of USA on blocking FX (foreign exchange) reserves and allocating them to irrelevant purposes, injustice to the people of Afghanistan,” the central bank said in a statement.
“(DAB) will never accept if the FX reserves of Afghanistan is paid under the name of compensation or humanitarian assistance to others and wants the reversal of the decision and release of all FX reserves of Afghanistan,” it added.
The central bank funds have been frozen since the Taliban took over the country as foreign forces withdrew in August. The frozen funding combined with sanctions and a drop off in development funding have sent the country’s economy into freefall, unleashing a humanitarian crisis.
Funds belong to Afghans
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi says the situation in Afghanistan is becoming serious and it is our collective responsibility to deal with this evolving situation.
The foreign minister issued a statement reacting on the US decision to unfreeze funds of Afghanistan for utilizing $3.5 billion for humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan.
He said that Afghanistan people have grave reservations on this decision. He said that Afghan citizens demand that the utilisation of this amount should be placed under the Afghanistan authority to solve their problems.
He said that Pakistan has been demanding from day one that Afghanistan’s frozen funds should be unfrozen and a resolution, in this regard, was passed in the extraordinary meeting of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers held in Islamabad in December last year. He said it is imperative that the money should be disbursed to the people of Afghanistan even through any United Nations agency.
