On Saturday, senior Taliban officials pleaded for foreign assistance to confront the country’s increasing economic crisis, which has fueled worries of another refugee exodus.
The remarks, made at a special conference to commemorate the United Nations’ International Migrant Day, highlighted the new Islamist Taliban government’s attempt to connect with the international community, four months after seizing power in Kabul.
Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the movement’s deputy foreign minister, said that it was the obligation of countries like the United States.
The US have frozen billions of dollars in central bank reserves, which was sanctioned as financial aids to assist the war-torn Afghanistan in its recovery after decades of conflicts.
‘The impact of the blocked funding is on ordinary people, not Taliban authorities,’ he told the conference, which included members from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
Millions of Afghans are at risk of starvation this winter, according to UN agencies, but aid has been impeded by Western hesitancy to interact directly with the Taliban, in part due to concerns about women’s rights.
Following the Taliban victory, foreign help was abruptly cut off, putting Afghanistan’s weak economy on the verge of collapse. Millions of people are unemployed, and the banking system is only partially operational.
Post Your Comments