The US government is seeking to free up half of $7 billion in frozen Afghan central bank assets on its soil to help the Afghan people, pending a judicial decision, while holding the rest to satisfy lawsuits against the Taliban from victims of terrorism, the White House said on Friday.
President Joe Biden signed an executive order declaring a national emergency to deal with the threat of a deepening economic collapse in Afghanistan.
The move comes hours before the US justice department is due to present a plan to a federal judge on what to do with the frozen fund amid urgent calls from US lawmakers and the UN for them to be used to address the dire economic crisis that has worsened since the Taliban’s takeover in August.
Senior administration officials said they would work to ensure access to $3.5 billion of the assets — which stem mainly from aid provided to Afghanistan over the past two decades — to benefit the Afghan people.
They said Washington would set up a third-party trust in coming months to administer the funds but details were still being worked out on how that entity would be structured and how the funds could be used.
The multi-step plan calls for the other half of the funds to remain in the US, subject to ongoing litigation by US victims of terrorism, including relatives of those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacking attacks, the officials said.
