Daily Times

China on Tuesday called the US decision to split Afghan reserves a “robbery” and urged Washington to return the money to Afghans.

The US stole money from Afghans, Hua Chunying, spokesperson of China’s Foreign Ministry, said on Twitter.

Hua reacted to the US President Joe Biden’s executive order last Friday splitting Afghanistan’s central bank’s $7 billion in assets, allocating half for humanitarian relief to the poverty-stricken country ravaged by 42 years of war, while keeping the other half available for compensation to victims of the 9/11 attacks.

“This is flagrant robbery and shameless moral decline. The US should immediately return the stolen money back to the Afghan people, and compensate people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and more who died or suffered losses from the US military invasions,” Hua said.

The interim government in Afghanistan condemned the move while many people in the war-torn country hit the streets against Biden’s decision.

“If the US does not deviate from its position and continues its provocative actions, the Islamic Emirate (Taliban) will also be forced to reconsider its policy towards the country,” the interim government’s spokesperson said in a statement on Monday.

“The Islamic Emirate strongly rejects Biden’s unjustified actions as a violation of the rights of all Afghans,” it added.

The spokesperson asserted that the 9/11 attacks “had nothing to do with Afghans”.

“Any tampering of the assets of the Afghan people under the pretext of 9/11 incident is a blatant abuse and injustice which is a clear violation of the agreement reached with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as well as an attempt to cover up the 20 years of its crimes committed in Afghanistan,” the statement said.

Urging Washington to unfreeze the wealth of Afghans “unconditionally”, the Afghan interim government asked the US to “refrain from any provocative actions that can lead to more mistrust”.

Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to China and attendance at the opening ceremony of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics carried on the fine tradition of mutual support between China and Pakistan, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Wang Wenbin said.

During the visit, President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang met with Prime Minister Imran Khan. The leaderships of the two countries held important exchanges and reached consensus on deepening China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), expanding science, agriculture and social livelihood cooperation.

The spokesperson made these remarks during his regular briefing in response to a question about the prime minister’s recent meeting with former ambassadors and representatives of think tanks and media.

In the meeting, PM Khan briefed them about results of his successful visit to China from Feb. 3 to 6 and said his visit had strengthened bilateral relations and opened investment windows.

Regarding the prospect for bilateral cooperation on investment, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said, “We will also encourage Chinese enterprises to invest in Pakistan to build a corridor of green development, health and digital economy, fully make use of the China-Pakistan Free Trade protocol and increase the agricultural products from Pakistan.”

He said that the Chinese side would try to implement this consensus reached between the leadership of Pakistan and China, deeper political cooperation and inject new impetus into all weather strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries.

“We will try to implement this consensus, deeper political cooperation and inject new impetus into our all weather strategic cooperative partnership,” he added.

During the visit, the prime minister attended the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, held meetings with the Chinese leadership, top entrepreneurs, representatives of think tanks and media.

A comprehensive joint statement between the two countries was also issued at the end of the visit.