Joe Biden to unfreeze $7 million from Afghanistan's central bank

Joe Biden, the President of the United States, has signed an executive order to unfreeze seven billion dollars in frozen assets of the Central Bank of Afghanistan. The order is intended to protect part of the Central Bank's $7 billion in the United States.   

Of this, $3.5 billion will go to settle numerous ongoing cases of victims of terrorism - including families affected by 9/11-. The other 3.5 billion will be used to deliver humanitarian aid to the Central Asian country.  The country is ravaged by years of conflict that culminated in the victory of the Taliban movement and the total suspension of international humanitarian aid agreed with the defeated Afghan government.  

According to the White House, this order will help "meet" the "urgent needs for food security, water, sanitation, health, hygiene, shelter and settlement assistance, and COVID-19 related assistance". He also stressed that this money would not go directly to the Taliban, but that the US authorities would give various amounts on a regular basis to various international NGOs. 

UN Secretary-General's spokesman Stéphane Dujarric described the action taken by the Biden administration as very positive, adding that they were very "encouraged" by the release of frozen assets in Afghanistan. These statements come as no surprise, given that the UN has long been calling on all countries to unfreeze assets in the country.  

Despite the UN's positive ratings, critics have called the move a dangerous step for the Central Bank of Afghanistan. It could drag the Asian country into a severe banking crisis and push the Afghan population into a major humanitarian crisis. Dr. Shah Mohammad Mehrabi, a member of the bank's board of directors and professor of economics at Montgomery College in Maryland, described the move in a statement to the New York Times as a "short-sighted view" of the situation. 

Moments before the news was made public, Mohamed Naim, spokesman for the Taliban's political office in Doha, described the US freezing of Afghan assets as representing "the lowest level of human and moral depravity that a country can reach". 

The Central Asian country has been mired in a severe humanitarian and economic crisis for decades, which has been exacerbated since the Taliban took over Kabul. According to the United Nations, 97% of Afghans could fall into absolute poverty by mid-2022. 

Two international journalists were released on 11 February 2022, a few hours before the order was made public. The journalists were detained while working on assignment for UNHCR. 

The UN agency reported the good news in a statement, "we are relieved to confirm the release in Kabul of the two journalists on assignment for UNHCR and the Afghan nationals working with them".  

The journalists were Andrew North, a former British correspondent who had covered Afghanistan on numerous occasions for the BBC, and Peter Jouvenal, a retired news professional arrested in December. Today, the reasons why the two journalists were locked up are still unknown. However, the UN has repeatedly warned of the disappearance of journalists since the Taliban took over Kabul. 

Americas Coordinator: José Antonio Sierra.