ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has once again urged the US to unfreeze Afghan assets and conditionally allow the Taliban government to use these funds to deal with the economic and humanitarian crisis in the war-torn country.
According to media reports, Foreign Office Spokesman Asim Iftikhar said at the weekly media conference on Friday that the Afghan assets held in the US should be released immediately and should be done in a way that the interim authorities can use this money.
He was responding to a question about reports that the process of unfreezing the funds could be delayed after al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in Kabul late last month. There are growing concerns in the US that this money could be transferred to terrorist groups.
The U.S. government froze $7 billion in assets held by Afghanistan after the Taliban took over the country last year, with President Biden earmarking the money earlier this year for families of victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks and suffering Afghans. Equally distributed in terms of aid.
Since then, Washington has been drawing up a plan to release those funds, with Ayman al-Zawahiri’s death fueling skepticism in the US about the Taliban’s counter-terrorism commitments.
Asim Iftikhar reminded that Pakistan also wants conditions to be imposed for the recovery of this amount, he specifically pointed out that the US has provided a lot of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan over the past year.
Referring to the recent visit of CENTCOM chief General Michael Korella and other bilateral engagements, the spokesman said that apart from the bilateral agenda, the two sides also discussed the situation in Afghanistan.
After the ouster of Imran Khan’s government, he mentioned the tension in the relationship due to the allegations leveled by the former prime minister and then the restoration, saying that as far as this ministry and political leadership is concerned, we recognize it and I think that on the other hand, Washington also recognizes that this is an important relationship that we have to build on mutual trust and interest.
