US being urged to return foreign assets to Afghanistan
China, Zhang Jun said, stands for “comprehensive measures to support a proper development of Afghanistan”
Zhang Jun, the Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations, said the US should without conditions immediately return foreign assets to Afghanistan.
The diplomat said there’s no progress in the unfreezing of the assets. “The Afghan people need every bit of these resources. That’s why it’s unjustified to freeze Afghanistan’s foreign assets,” the envoy said at a meeting of the UN Security Council. “The US should react to calls by the Un secretary general, human rights experts and humanitarian agencies and without any conditions return foreign assets to Afghanistan as soon as possible.”
China, he said, stands for “comprehensive measures to support a proper development of Afghanistan.”
After the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 2021 Washington seized the assets of that country that were held in US banks.
Similarly the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN Vasily Nebenzya on Thursday accused the US and NATO of shifting the responsibility for the current crisis in Afghanistan to the world community.
He said a donor conference on humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, which was held on March 31 under the auspices of the UN, didn’t live up to expectations.
“The attempts by the US and NATO colleagues to shift responsibility for the current crisis situation in Afghanistan and for the rebuilding of the country, as well as attempts to force poverty-stricken Afghans to pay the bills for the September 11, 2001 attacks, which they have nothing to do with, look hypocritical,” Nebenzya said.
The envoy said the Soviet Union helped the country to construct more than 140 plants that became the backbone of its economy.
“During the 20 years of NATO’s presence in the country, not a single enterprise was built, the economy of Afghanistan was directly dependent on international funding,” the diplomat said.
He said foreign humanitarian aid to Afghanistan can reduce social tensions only to a small extent. “We positively assess certain steps taken by international organizations and financial institutions, in particular the World Bank, to alleviate the humanitarian situation,” he said. “Unfortunately, these measures are still not enough to sustainably improve the lives of ordinary Afghans.”
The Taliban embarked on an extensive operation to gain control of Afghanistan after the US announced in the spring of 2021 that it would pull out its forces from the country. On August 15, Taliban fighters swept into Kabul and Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. On September 7, the radicals announced an interim government, which hasn’t been recognized by any of the world’s nations.
