PESHAWAR: Pakistan Foreign Office has stated that the decision to use Afghanistan’s frozen assets must be made independently by the people of Afghanistan.
The United States President Joe Biden has signed an executive order on February 11, releasing $7 billion from Afghanistan’s frozen financial assets. The United States will set up a charitable fund in the coming months to manage half of that $7 billion, with the remaining $3.5 billion will be spend by the people affected by terrorism.
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Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the country stood by its previous position that the assets of Afghanistan’s foreign bank belong to the Afghan nation and should be released for the development of war-riddled Afghanistan. The statement added that the people of Afghanistan should have the right to use their resources independently. The assets were frozen by the United States after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in mid-August last year.
According to a presidential decree signed on Friday, the administration would be able to access the frozen Afghan assets in the Federal Reserve of New York and spend $3.5 billion of these assets for the welfare of the Afghan people and the future of Afghanistan. However, the same order said that the amount could not be allocated till the US court announced its judgment. On the other hand, a Taliban spokespersons termed the US decision a sign of “theft” and “moral decay”.
In the past the Taliban had warned that non-return of frozen funds to Afghanistan could lead to ‘problems’ which would not only further affect Afghanistan economically but also cause large numbers of people to flee the country for asylum. The country’s economic situation has been deteriorating since the Taliban took control in August 2021, and the United Nations has expressed concern that the country’s poverty rate could reach 97 percent by mid-2022.