WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – Afghans in the U.S. have demanded that the Biden administration lift restrictions on the Afghan banking sector and release financial assets belonging to the Afghan people, Anadolu News Agency reports.
The humanitarian situation is worsening in Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrew troops from the conflict-hit country and the Taliban took control of the government by seizing Kabul on 15 August.
The U.S. froze $9 billion in financial assets belonging to the Afghan central bank after the Taliban takeover, and it said assets the government has in the U.S. will not be available to the Taliban.
“Now, Afghanistan is in dire need. I hope they (Biden administration) release the assets of Afghanistan,” said Bakhtar Aminzai, a former member of the Meshrano Jirga, the upper house in the Afghanistan parliament.
Aminzai made the remarks to Anadolu Agency on the sidelines of a one-day humanitarian conference for Afghanistan in Washington DC.
He said the effect of frozen assets directly goes to “innocent Afghan people” who, he said, are suffering from the worsening situation in the country.
“I think America, American people and government will soon release the assets of Afghans and encourage charity organizations for helping Afghanistan,” added Aminzai.
Abdul Subhan Misbah, chairman at Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief and Development (ACBAR), said 75 percent of Afghans currently live below the poverty line.
ACBAR is an organizer of the conference, along with the Zakat Foundation of America — a Chicago-based NGO that helps the needy in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
He also cited UN reports that said around 1 million children in Afghanistan could die from hunger.
Meanwhile, the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan have warned neighboring Tajikistan and Uzbekistan of “consequences” in case they fail to return the Afghan Air Force aircraft and helicopters that were flown into their territories by fleeing pilots during the U.S. military exit in August last year.
All Afghan Air Force aircraft and helicopters “taken abroad must be returned... (without) testing our patience,” Taliban Defense Minister Mawlawi Mohammad Yaqoob Mujahid said in his speech at an Afghan Air Force event in Kabul on Tuesday.
“I respectfully call on Uzbekistan and Tajikistan not to test our patience and not to force us to take all possible retaliatory steps to retake the aircraft,” the Afghan official was quoted as saying by TOLO News.
In his speech, the Taliban official said all the pilots and flight engineers who had fled the country were welcome to return to Afghanistan. He described the pilots as heroes.