Pakistan has called for the complete unfreezing of Afghanistan’s assets after the Joe Biden-led administration in the United States decided to keep half of the $7 billion Afghan assets in the country.
Biden on Friday signed an executive order to deal with the threat of an economic collapse in Afghanistan, setting wheels in motion for a complex resolution of competing interests in the country’s assets.
The United States is seeking to free up half of the $7 billion in frozen Afghan central bank assets on US soil to help the Afghan people while holding the rest to possibly satisfy terrorism-related lawsuits against the Taliban, the White House said.
In a statement on Saturday, Foreign Office spokesperson Asim Iftikhar said Pakistan had seen the US decision to release $3.5 billion for humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan and $3.5 billion for compensation to families of 9/11 victims.
“Over the past several months, Pakistan has been consistently emphasising the need for international community to quickly act to address the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan and to help revive the Afghan economy, as the two are inextricably linked,” the spokesperson said.
Iftikhar added that finding ways to unfreeze the Afghan foreign reserves urgently would help address the humanitarian and economic needs of the Afghan people.
He said Islamabad’s principled position on the frozen Afghan foreign bank reserves remains that these are owned by the Afghan nation and these should be released. “The utilisation of Afghan funds should be the sovereign decision of Afghanistan,” he said.
The spokesperson highlighted that the Afghan people are facing grave economic and
humanitarian challenges and the international community must continue to play its important and constructive role in alleviating their sufferings.
“Time is of the essence.” Meanwhile, demonstrators in Afghanistan’s capital on Saturday condemned US President Joe Biden’s order freeing up $3.5 billion in Afghan assets held in the US for families of America’s 9/11 victims, saying the money belongs to Afghans.
Protesters who gathered outside Kabul’s grand Eid Gah mosque asked America for financial compensation for the tens of thousands of Afghans killed during the last 20 years of war in Afghanistan.
AP adds: Afghanistan’s central bank, known as Da Afghanistan Bank or DAB, also opposed the move, calling it “an injustice to the people of Afghanistan” and demanding that the decision be withdrawn.
“DAB considers the latest decision of [the] USA on blocking FX (foreign exchange) reserves and allocating them to irrelevant purposes [an] injustice to the people of Afghanistan and will never accept if the FX reserves of Afghanistan [are] paid [in] 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 said in a press release.
The bank said the “real owners” of the said assets were the people of Afghanistan. “These reserves were not and [are] not the property of governments, parties and groups and [are] never used as per their demand and decisions,” it added.
With regards to the management of the assets, the bank highlighted: “Considering the specified objectives, the FX reserves of Afghanistan is managed based on the international practices.
