Amir Khan Muttaqi
In the midst of imminent economy collapse of Afghanistan, the Acting Foreign Minister of the Taliban asked U.S. Government to unfreeze Afghanistan assets.
Amir Khan Muttaqi made the statement on October 11, during a panel of Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies in Doha, saying, “no U.S. troops/ citizen was killed in Afghanistan in past 18 months, no one was harmed during the evacuation from Kabul International Airport, we hope they would do a favor in return and don’t freeze Afghanistan’s asset.”
Acting Foreign Minister of Taliban Government asked U.S. Government to consider their decision and separate humanitarian issues from politics.
There was no any word from U.S. Government after the remarks, but the U.S. Government has frozen nearly $9.5 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank (Da Afghanistan Bank) and stopped shipments of cash to the nation as it tries to keep a Taliban-led government from accessing the money, economy crisis is deepening, one U.S. Dollar is exchanged over 90 Afghani and people are just trying to withdraw cash from banks.
Marcela Sanchez-Bender, a World Bank spokesperson has said, “We have paused disbursements in our operations in Afghanistan and we are closely monitoring and assessing the situation in line with our internal policies and procedures.”
The World Bank’s decision came a week after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) halted Afghanistan’s access to IMF funds. An IMF spokesperson said, “As is always the case, the IMF is guided by the views of the international community. There is currently a lack of clarity within the international community regarding recognition of a government in Afghanistan, as a consequence of which the country cannot access SDRs [special drawing rights] or other IMF resources.”
After takeover of the country on 15 August, the Taliban couldn’t cope the current economic and financial dilemma and there was no any policy by the group to struggle the situation mostly effected ordinary people.
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