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West responsible for deplorable state of Afghan economy — Lavrov

According to the Russian foreign minister, the US is seeking to decline all responsibility for Afghan citizens and refugees

TUNXI /China/, March 31. /TASS/. Western countries are responsible for the current deplorable situation in Afghanistan’s economy and should sponsor its recovery, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday.

"After NATO’s 20-year military presence accompanied by the abortive experiment on imposing alien recipes and values, the collective West is directly responsible for today’s humanitarian situation and the deplorable state of the Afghan economy," he said at the third ministerial conference of Afghanistan’s neighboring countries (Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan). "Hence, it must undertake the financial burden for crisis overcoming and stabilizing the situation."

According to Lavrov, the United States is seeking to decline all responsibility for Afghan citizens and refugees. ""Washington, as we have seen many times, is seeking to dodge responsibility for the future of Afghan citizens and refugees, including those who served the Americans and who are now trapped in ‘transit countries’ on their way to the United States. It looks like that the United States can leave these people in the region for good," he said.

He slammed US President Joe Biden’s executive order to block the Afghan Central Bank’s seven-billion-dollar assets as cynical. "Especially cynical is Biden’s executive order to block half of the Afghan Central Bank’s deposits under the pretext of the necessity to pay compensations under the lawsuits of the families of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks victims. The Afghan people had nothing to do with the organization of these crimes," Lavrov noted, and stressed that it seriously limits the Taliban (outlawed in Russia) government’s possibilities toward normalizing the situation and reduces the counter-terrorist potential of the Afghan army and law enforcers.

"The sincerity of the American’s intentions to help stabilize the situation in Afghanistan is questionable," he added.