Pakistan said it was the right of the Afghans.. A protest in Kabul against Washington's seizure of frozen Afghan funds

Today, Saturday, Afghan citizens demonstrated in the Afghan capital, Kabul, to protest against US President Joe Biden's decision yesterday, Friday, to seize $7 billion in deposits of the Central Bank of Afghanistan in the United States. It is the right of the Afghans to act according to their interests."

And the US Associated Press reported that the protesters in Kabul condemned the US president's decision to allocate $3.5 billion in frozen Afghan funds to benefit the families of the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks, saying that these funds belong to the Afghan people.

The demonstrators demanded Washington to provide financial compensation to the tens of thousands of Afghans who have been killed since the United States launched the war on Afghanistan 20 years ago, in the wake of the "September 11" attacks, and the protesters raised banners in English denouncing the "rude behavior" of the Biden administration and its "stealing Afghans' money." ".

Abdul Rahman - one of the organizers of today's protest - said that other demonstrations will take place in Kabul to express his rejection of Biden's decision to seize the funds of the Afghan Central Bank in American banks.

The US news agency quoted Torek Farhadi, the financial advisor to the former Afghan government, as saying that the Afghan financial reserves in the United States belong to the Afghan people, not the Taliban, stressing that President Biden's decision is "unilateral and contrary to international law."

"No country in the world can issue a decision to confiscate another country's money," Farhadi added.

Afghan Central

In a related context, the Central Bank of Afghanistan today issued a press statement rejecting President Biden's decision to unfreeze the bank's deposits and disburse them for humanitarian purposes and to compensate the families of the victims of the "9/11" attacks, and the Central Bank said that this decision is unfair to the Afghan people.

Press Release of Da Afghanistan Bank on the Decision of United States of America Regarding the Foreign Exchange Reserves of Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/ur2u1pvKVl

— Da Afghanistan Bank- Afghanistan (@AFGCentralbank) February 12, 2022

The statement of the Afghan Central stressed that it will never accept that the frozen Afghan financial assets be disbursed for the benefit of humanitarian aid or for the payment of any compensation, explaining that the main objective of these assets in accordance with the law is to implement the financial policy, facilitate international trade for Afghanistan, and ensure the stability of its financial sector.

Pakistan's position

In a related context, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the Afghan funds frozen in the countries of the world are the right of the Afghans to act according to their interests, and the Pakistani Foreign Ministry called on the international community to immediately and quickly release the Afghan funds frozen in the banks of some countries to revive the Afghan economy and avoid any humanitarian catastrophe. .

The spokesman for the Taliban's political office, Muhammad Naim, yesterday described President Biden's decision yesterday as "a theft of the money of the Afghan people", and that it was a decision that "indicates the highest level of decadence," and Naim added - in a tweet to him - that "defeat and victory are possible in human history, but defeat The great and scandalous is for a country or people to experience both a military and a moral defeat.”

Last November, the Taliban called on the Congress to release the assets of the Afghan Central Bank to confront the difficult humanitarian and economic situation in the country, and Russia urged the United States in particular to release these assets.

The United States froze billions of dollars in Afghan foreign assets after the Taliban seized power last August.

special powers

The White House clarified on Friday that President Biden used "special economic powers" granted to him by law dating back to 1977, and intends to transfer the assets of the Afghan Central Bank to a frozen account of the Federal Reserve in New York, which is a public institution.

A senior US administration official said on Friday that the rules for the Afghan Asset Trust Fund are currently being prepared, and he expected this to take two months, in addition to the necessary consultation with partners and allies.

It concerns the fund in which the Afghan assets in the United States, which were unfrozen under Biden's decision, will be placed.