BEIJING, Feb. 15 (APP): The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Wednesday said that Afghan assets belonged to Afghan people and should be returned to Afghanistan for benefit of its people.
The United States should not exacerbate the suffering of the Afghan people. It should unfreeze their assets, lift unilateral sanctions on Afghanistan as soon as possible, and assume due responsibility to ease the humanitarian crisis in the country,
Wang Wenbin said during his regular briefing held here while commenting on the executive order signed by US President Biden regarding the $7billion frozen assets of the Central Bank of Afghanistan.
The Afghanistan’s caretaker government has already objected to actions of using half of the frozen assets of the Afghan Central Bank to compensate victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The September 11 attacks had nothing to do with Afghans, the Taliban said in a statement, adding that any attempt to seize the property of the Afghan people under the pretext of the incident is a clear violation of the Doha peace agreement with Afghanistan.
The United States will free up half of the $7 billion in frozen Afghan central bank assets on U.S. soil to help Afghans struggling with a humanitarian crisis and hold the rest to possibly satisfy terrorism-related lawsuits against the Taliban.
Biden’s plan calls for half of the funds to remain in the United States subject to ongoing litigation by U.S. victims of terrorism, including relatives of those who died in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
