KABUL:
The Afghan central bank on Sunday called for the reversal of the US government’s decision to split the frozen assets of the war-torn nation.
On Friday, US President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order allowing some of the frozen assets from the war-torn nation’s central bank to be distributed as assistance to victims of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, according to a White House statement.
According to the White House, while “the administration will seek to facilitate access to $3.5 billion of those assets for the benefit of the Afghan people”, “more than $3.5 billion in DAB assets would remain in the US and are subject to ongoing litigation by American victims of terrorism”.
In its statement on Sunday, the Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) said that it considers the US’ move on “blocking Foreign Exchange (FX) Reserves and allocating them to irrelevant purposes, injustice to the people of Afghanistan and will never accept if the FX reserves of Afghanistan is paid under the name of compensation or humanitarian assistance to others and wants the reversal of the decision and release of all FX reserves of Afghanistan”, reports Xinhua news agency.
When Kabul fell to the Taliban in August 2021, Afghanistan had over $9 billion in reserves held in the name of DAB outside of the country. IANS