US sets up fund outside Afghanistan, cites trust issues with Taliban

• 

Washington announced that it was setting up a 'professionally-run' fund outside Afghanistan to raise $3.5 billion in Afghanistan's reserves, arguing that it could not trust the Taliban with the country's money.

The Afghan Fund, which is based in Switzerland, will be in charge of central bank transactions including paying Kabul's international arrears, in addition to electricity imports and future necessities, for example, printing money.

This decision comes after the Taliban and the US weren't able to convince the Biden administration to hand over stolen frozen assets to Kabul, disregarding Afghanistan's urgent need for humanitarian aid.

US Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo expressed regret that independence from the Taliban was not addressed as a concern.

"There is currently no institution in Afghanistan that can guarantee that these funds would be used only for the benefit of the people of Afghanistan, including DAB," Adeyemo claimed, referring to Da Afghanistan Bank.

"Until these conditions are met, sending assets to DAB would place them at unacceptable risk and jeopardize them as a source of support for the Afghan people," he wrote in a letter obtained by AFP.

Two Afghan economists that have no affiliation with the Taliban, in addition to US and Swiss representatives, will be running the fund, maintaining an account with the Bank for International Settlements, owned by the world's central banks. 

In mid-August, a report written by the Wall Street Journal noted that the United States will not release any of the $7 billion in Afghan central bank assets held on American soil and has halted relevant talks with the Taliban movement, using the assassination of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri in Kabul last month as a pretext for their abstinence. 

The decision reversed tiny signs of progress in negotiations between Washington and the Taliban and calls into question an economic recovery in Afghanistan where millions of people face starvation, the report considered.

Last August, the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of US troops and the end of the US occupation of the country, concluded with a chaotic withdrawal that drew backlash across the world.

Following the withdrawal, the US locked billions of dollars of Afghanistan government reserves. In February, US President Joe Biden signed an executive order releasing $7 billion in frozen Afghan funds to be shared between humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan and American victims of "terrorism", including 9/11 families; a step that the Taliban slammed as theft and moral decline of US.