Washington: US President Joe Biden signed an order on Friday that will free $7 billion of Afghan assets confiscated in the US and split it into two parts. A portion of the funds will go towards humanitarian aid for poverty-stricken Afghanistan and the victims of September 11.
The funds will not be released immediately. But Biden’s order calls on banks to provide $3.5 billion of the seized funds to a trust fund for distribution through humanitarian groups for Afghan relief and basic needs. Another $3.5 billion will be given to cover expenses incurred during the trials of victims of terrorism in the US. International funding to Afghanistan was halted after the Taliban took control of the country in August and the country’s billions of dollars of assets abroad, mostly in the US, were confiscated.
The White House said in a statement that the order was “to provide a way for the people of Afghanistan to access this money and keep it out of the hands of the Taliban.” The Taliban’s political spokesman, Mohammad Naeem, criticized the Biden administration for not releasing all the funds to Afghanistan. Naeem tweeted on Friday: “The US stealing and confiscating Afghanistan’s blocked funds shows the lowest level of humanity of one nation and one nation.” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Friday night that he was “excited” by Biden’s executive order.
read also
“It is also important to reiterate that humanitarian aid alone will be insufficient to meet the long-term needs of Afghan women and men and children, and it is important that the Afghan economy is reoriented to meet these needs,” Dujarric said. and solve the problems of the Afghan people in a sustainable and meaningful way.
The head of the International Relief Committee, David Miliband, on Wednesday urged the release of funds to stop the crisis. “The human community didn’t choose the government, but that’s no excuse to punish the people,” Miliband told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the matter. In such a situation, a middle path should be chosen to help the Afghan people without adopting a new government.