Sofia cradles her 2-month-old baby, Abdul, as he undergoes treatment at the malnutrition ward of the Indira Gandhi Children's Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Oct 5, 2021. Health workers in the hospital dashed back and forth caring for gasping premature newborns and others suffering from severe malnutrition and other diseases. (FELIPE DANA / AP)
The US refusal to release the Afghan central bank’s $9.5 billion in reserves deposited mostly in New York has raised humanitarian and economic concerns around the world.
The international community should make an effort to enable the Taliban government to access these funds, make more contribution to save Afghanistan from the brink of an economic meltdown and help stabilize the situation, state leaders, diplomats and international affairs experts said.
The international community should make an effort to enable the Taliban government to access these funds, make more contribution to save Afghanistan from the brink of an economic meltdown and help stabilize the situation, state leaders, diplomats and international affairs experts said
"Afghanistan's economy should not collapse. That is why countries which have frozen Afghanistan's assets abroad should be more flexible so that salaries can be paid," said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, while hosting his acting counterpart in the Taliban government, Amir Khan Muttaqi, in Ankara on Oct 14,
Speaking after the closed-door talks, Cavusoglu urged international engagement with the Taliban.
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“We have told the international community about the importance of engagement with the current Taliban administration. In fact, recognition and engagement are two different things,” he said.
The meeting, the first since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, came after a series of talks between Taliban leaders and officials of the United States, European nations and European Union representatives in Qatar.
It is essential that the Americans not only release the funds that the Afghanistan people own, but also provide much needed developmental and economic assistance along with the international community “as the basic needs of Afghanistan people are not being met — people cannot afford to even buy food”, said Amina Khan, director of the Centre for Afghanistan, Middle East and Africa at the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad, referring to the 14 million Afghans facing a food crisis.
Salman Bashir, a former foreign secretary of Pakistan and former ambassador to China, said that it seems for now that these reserves will stay blocked and their release contingent on impossible conditions.
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Bashir said the essential question is whether the major powers want stability in Afghanistan and are prepared for humanitarian help with no strings attached.
He reminded everyone that the international community should care about the welfare of the Afghan people.
“The blocking of Afghan central bank reserves needs to be seen in this light,” he stressed, adding that the immediate neighbors of Afghanistan “should do their best in socio-economic recovery and reconstruction in Afghanistan”.
On Tuesday, leaders of Group of 20 virtually discussed how to prevent an economic breakdown as well as humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan. European Union pledged an aid of $1 billion euros to Afghanistan and its neighboring countries.
“We must do all we can to avert a major humanitarian and socio-economic collapse in Afghanistan,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said in a statement later. “We need to do it fast.”
Earlier, the Afghanistan's caretaker government’s foreign minister Muttaqi urged the US to unfreeze Afghanistan's central bank reserves, during their first in-person meeting with the US delegation since late August in Doha on Oct 9 and 10. However, the US showed no intention on doing so.
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The neighboring countries of Afghanistan have also voiced support on releasing the funds frozen by the US two days after the Taliban took over Kabul on August 15.
In September, both Pakistan and Qatar called on the US to release the frozen assets to avoid the total economic collapse of the Afghanistan.
“If you’re not ready for immediate economic aid or development, fine. Do not take steps that would lead to an economic collapse of Afghanistan as that will not help anyone,” Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi was quoted as saying by local media Middle East Monitor.
"The first thing that you ought to do is, at least, release what is theirs. Defreeze the Afghan assets and let Afghan people utilize their money for their benefit.”
Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said, “Humanitarian assistance should be independent from any political progress.”
The assets belong to Afghanistan and should be used for the Afghan people, China’s State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said last month at the Meeting of Foreign Ministers of Permanent Members of the United Nations Security Council and the UN Secretary-General in Beijing via video link.
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“The US should not freeze them without justification,” he said, “The US should face up to the legitimate demand of Afghanistan, abandon pressure and sanctions, and stop creating obstacles to the economy, livelihood and peace and reconstruction in Afghanistan.”
In September, China announced to urgently provide Afghanistan with 200 million yuan worth of assistance. The first batch of material assistance arrived earlier this month.
Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev also urged other nations to release Afghanistan's assets during the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in September.
Mustafa Hyder Sayed, executive director of the Pakistan-China Institute, said Afghan funds in New York are being used as bait for political interests of the United States in Afghanistan and the region, which in fact is contrary to the interests of the Afghan people and the future of Afghanistan.
“It seems that the intention is to control them (the Afghans) by controlling the funds in New York,” he said.
Aljazeera contributed to this report.
vivienxu@chinadailyapac.com