Taliban urge US government to release Afghan cash reserves

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The Taliban have been in power in Kabul since August

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STRINGER / EPA

The militant Islamist Taliban have urged the US government to release reserves from the Afghan central bank.

The freezing of Afghan assets does not solve any problems and is not a demand of the American people, so Washington must release the reserves, it said in an open letter from the incumbent Afghan Foreign Minister, Amir Chan Mutaki, to the US Congress.

He warned of mass migration in the region and negative consequences for education and health care in the country.

Annual aid funds of $ 8.5 billion are missing

The letter said that there was no political or logical justification for a child to suffer from malnutrition, a mother to die from inadequate health care, ordinary Afghans to be hungry or to have no medication, and that it was damaging to the United States as it was a purely humanitarian matter.

When the Taliban took over military power in mid-August, most aid to Afghanistan was suspended.

Around $ 9 billion in the country's central bank reserves, most of which are parked in the United States, have been frozen.

Prior to that, the Kabul government had received $ 8.5 billion in military and civil aid annually, according to a report by the Kabul think tank Afghanistan Analysts Network.

This financed 75 percent of public spending.

The previously ailing economy has since been in free fall.

According to aid organizations, a serious humanitarian crisis is looming in the country.

A drought and the upcoming winter with rising prices aggravate the situation further.

The United Nations warned that by November, more than half of the population would not have enough to eat.

So far, no country in the world has recognized the Taliban government.

muk / dpa