Pakistan calls for unfreezing Afghan assets

Pakistan and Qatar urged the international community not to take steps that might lead to the economic collapse, as Islamabad called for unfreezing the Afghan assets.

"Humanitarian assistance should be independent of any political progress because we believe that Afghan people deserve to be supported despite what's happening in the political landscape," the Qatari foreign minister stressed at a joint news conference with his Pakistani counterpart.

The visit Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, who is also Qatar's Deputy Prime Minister, was the latest in a series of trips undertaken by foreign dignitaries to Pakistan in view of the evolving situation in Afghanistan.

The top Qatari diplomat,

of whose country, like Pakistan, played a key role in the Afghan peace efforts, held formal talks with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and also met Prime Minister Imran Khan.

"We both agree that the immediate challenge is to avoid the humanitarian crises," Qureshi told the joint press conference, endorsing his Qatari counterpart's view that no strings should be attached to humanitarian assistance.

Qureshi said the world might assess the conduct of the Afghan Taliban but it must not resort to steps that could lead to the economic collapse of Afghanistan.

"So, the first thing you do is to release their assets…the Afghan assets. Defreeze them and let the Afghan people utilise their money for their benefit," Qureshi emphasised.

Since the Taliban took control of Kabul, the international financial institutions suspended all kinds of assistance to Afghanistan and the US had frozen foreign reserves of Afghanistan.

At the time of the fall of Kabul, the Afghan State Bank had $9 billion foreign reserves and more than $7 billion were with the US banks that were immediately frozen by Washington. This means that the new interim Afghan government can't have access to those assets.

Foreign Minister Qureshi may have asked for unfreezing those assets but the US is likely to use them as leverage for its future engagement with Afghanistan.

Despite concerns shown by many countries over the formation of the Taliban government, the Qatari foreign minister said he was encouraged by the support extended by the Taliban in operationalising the Kabul International Airport.