Afghanistan's illegally blocked funds must be unfrozen, says Russian President Putin

Russia on Thursday blamed the "failed policies" of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) as the main reason behind the current situation in Afghanistan and called the Biden administration to release the frozen assets to normalise the condition. Speaking at the sixth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Astana on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin termed Afghanistan as one of the biggest security challenges in the neighbouring regions. 

As US and NATO framed policies for more than 20 years in Kabul, Putin underscored that country was not able to deal with the terrorist threat "independently". He cited the series of violent terrorist attacks, including the blast outside the Russian Embassy in Kabul on September 5 as the "failed policies of the US". The Russian President also called his US counterpart Joe Biden to compensate the already debt-ridden with more funds to ease the situation. "To normalise the situation in Afghanistan, naturally, we have to work together to help it with economic recovery. But first of all, we strongly insist on compensating for the damage caused to the Afghan people during the years of occupation and unblocking the unlawfully frozen Afghan funds," said Putin, in a staunch reply to the West's criticism over the ongoing war in Ukraine. 

"In the context of a settlement in Afghanistan, it would be helpful to use the resources of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and its regional anti-terrorist body," it added. 

Taliban also appealed to Biden administration to release assets

In November last year, the Taliban also appealed to the Biden administration to release the assets as the country has been facing economic turbulence since it ousted the democratically elected government and took over the charge of the already debt-ridden nation. "It is quite surprising that with the announcement of the new government, the administration of the United States of America slapped sanctions on the assets of our Central Bank. This goes against our expectations as well as the Doha Agreement," read the letter addressed to the US. In the reply, the US asserted the extremist outfit to restore all human rights in order to receive funds from the United States. 

Image: AP/Kremlin