Afghans in their protests in Kabul and provinces are asking for unfreezing of the country’s assets frozen by the U.S. for the past 11 months.
The protesters in their interviews with The Kabul Times correspondent while asking the U.S. to unfreeze foreign assets of Afghanistan’s Central Bank said the U.S. should not keep freezing Afghanistan assets. They said the U.S. should take an urgent decision to unfreeze the assets and not keep the people of Afghanistan in continued economic crisis anymore.
“The foreign assets belong to the people of Afghanistan and should be released,” said Haris, a protester in Kabul. He added it was unacceptable as the U.S. has frozen foreign assets of Afghanistan’s central bank for the past 11 months.
Nagina another Afghan by criticizing the U.S. for freezing Afghanistan assets asked the U.S. to unfreeze the assets.
“It was a good step the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, but the country should not keep foreign assets of Afghanistan frozen,” Nagina said, adding that the U.S. move for not releasing Afghanistan assets is unpleasant and bad. He asked the U.S. to take urgent decision on releasing of the assets.
According to Nagina, dozens of the country’s development projects have been stopped due to lack of budget. If the U.S. unfreezes foreign assets of Da Afghanistan bank, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) will resume work on development projects, which will help people find employment instead of leaving the country.
Meanwhile, a number of residents of Khost in a protest have asked the U.S. to unfreeze the assets of the country.
“We’re asking the U.S. to release the assets as they belong to the people of Afghanistan,” said Jamil, a protester.
In its recent statement, the U.S. Department of State has said that U.S. is making effort to unfreeze part of the foreign assets of Da Afghanistan bank to help Afghans get access to the money. According to the U.S. Department of State, debates are underway so that Afghanistan’s frozen assets are released.
A spokesman for the U.S. Department of State, Ned Price, said that the U.S. is “urgently working to address concerns about the use of the licensed $3.5 billion in Afghan central bank reserves to ensure, to see to it, that they benefit the people of Afghanistan.”
“We’re working with Afghans, we’re working with local partners at the technical level, to address underlying macroeconomic issues, which will provide, we believe, necessary stability for the current humanitarian response to be more effective, and it will alleviate many of the issues that fueled the humanitarian crisis we see today,” Price told the reporters. “So these talks are ongoing. As soon as we have an update, be happy to let you know.”
On the other hand, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) says the foreign assets of Da Afghanistan bank are to support the country’s economy; therefore, it should be released unconditionally and soon.
“The Afghan assets which are frozen by the U.S. are the economic savings of Afghanistan which should be given back to the Afghans as soon as possible. We are trying to proceed using all mechanisms to unfreeze the assets,” said Bilal Karimi, deputy spokesman for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Afghanistan Central Bank has not yet commented on the statement of the U.S. Department of State.
Based on previously reports, Da Afghanistan Bank ‘central bank’ has said the $3 billion out of $4.9 billion of the country’s frozen assets belong to traders and investors, causing suspension of economic operations in the country.
Earlier, U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order to move some $7 billion of the Afghan central bank’s assets frozen in the U.S. banking system to fund humanitarian relief in Afghanistan and compensate victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The U.S. court has not decided on Biden’s executive order.
Afghan economists say freezing billions in dollar of Afghanistan’s assets by the U.S. has somehow made Afghanistan economic activities suspend. They say the assets belong to the people of Afghanistan and should be released as soon as possible.
“The U.S. move in connection with freezing billions of dollars of Afghanistan assets has put negative impacts on the ordinary Afghans. Besides, the country’s move has also affected foreign investment in Afghanistan,” said Samim Sarem, an Afghan economist.
He asked the U.S. to speedily unfreeze the assets as most of them belonged to traders and investors, or the country would face with further human crisis and increase unemployment in the country.
It is worth mentioning that with the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, seven billion dollars of Afghanistan assets were frozen by the United States, which provoked domestic and international reactions. Shukria Kohistani
Afghanistan’s assets should be released as soon as possible
