KABUL (SW) – Condemning the US move to split Afghan state reserve funds, former president Hamid Karzai has urged Washington to reverse the move.
Former President Hamid Karzai has criticized US President Joe Biden’s decision to allocate part of Afghanistan’s assets as compensation to the relatives of 9/11 victims, saying the United States should reconsider the move.
The former president stressed in a press conference on Sunday that Afghanistan’s frozen assets do not belong to the government of the Islamic Emirate, but to the citizens of Afghanistan.
Karzai added that these assets should not be given to the relatives of the victims of the 9/11 attacks, but all Afghan assets should be returned to the citizens of this country.
Karzai has also stated that Osama bin Laden was killed as the main culprit in the 9/11 attacks in Pakistan and that the citizens of Afghanistan should not pay the price for his actions. According to him, the Afghan people are the biggest victims of terrorism.
The former president stressed that this money should not be spent, but the foreign exchange reserves of the citizens of Afghanistan and future generations of this country that should be kept.
The US President Joe Biden’s move to split Afghanistan’s state reserves worth some $ 7 billion has been widely condemned.
A day earlier, US President Joe Biden signed a decree freeing $ 7 billion of Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves. Under the decree, $ 3.5 billion is earmarked for humanitarian assistance and the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, and another $ 3.5 billion for compensation to the relatives of the victims of the 9/11 attacks in the United States.
The US President’s decision has provoked national and international reactions.
In the first place, the Islamic Emirate criticized the issuance of this decree, calling it an inhumane decision. Mohammad Naeem, a spokesman for its political bureau in Qatar, wrote on Twitter: “The theft and seizure of money blocked by the United States shows the lowest level of human and moral depravity of a country and a nation.”
Human Rights Watch also issued a statement calling the decision “problematic” for Afghanistan. The agency stressed that the frozen money belonged to Afghans and should be allocated to Afghan citizens.
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