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Russia urges Washington to return frozen assets to Afghan people — UN envoy

Attempts by the United States and other major donors to use Afghan funds as a pretext for solving their problems are immoral, said the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN

Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya Alexander Shcherbak/TASS

Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya

© Alexander Shcherbak/TASS

UNITED NATIONS, December 21. /TASS/. The attempts of the US and other major donors to use the frozen funds of Afghanistan as a pretext for achievement of their own goals are amoral, and Russia calls to immediately return these funds to the people of this country, Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said during the UN Security Council meeting Tuesday.

"The situation with the asset unfreezing is outrageous. The attempts of the US and other major donors to use Afghan money as a pretext for achievement of their own goals are amoral," Nebenzya underscored. "Creating of artificial precondition is a dead end. We call to immediately return the stolen money to the Afghan people, including those women and girls that you have been talking today."

According to the envoy, the social and economic state of Afghanistan remains in Russia’s close focus.

"We note the importance of the adaptation of the UN Security Council Resolution 2615, aimed at the expansion of channels for humanitarian aid for Afghanistan without additional preconditions," Nebenzya said. "At the same time, we see that it is not enough. Western donors are still not interested in expanding the aid beyond the basic needs and early restoration programs. While talking loudly about the importance of aid to the Afghan people, including women and girls, they categorically reject the slightest option to aid in the development of the country, in restoration of schools and hospitals, in construction of roads that connect provinces or cities with agricultural districts."

"The US and its partners keep failing to comprehend, it seems, that their methods of influencing the undesirable regimes via unilateral sanctions, political and economic pressure and endless ultimatums have long lost its effect," the diplomat noted. "They only lead to growing conviction that countries must look for their own path of self-sufficient development and not to wait for Western financial aid. We see that Kabul also understands the lack of alternatives for such path for Afghanistan.".

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Afghanistan United States Vasily Nebenzya

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