UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres
New York … News Time
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has reiterated his call for conditional release of frozen funds from Afghanistan and vowed to continue his far-sighted diplomacy to resolve the Afghan crisis. The newspaper reported that immediately after the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in August 2021, the United States froze nearly $.7 billion worth of Afghan assets in the New York Federal Reserve. Since then, organizations and individuals in both the United States and Europe have been urging Washington to freeze funds. A few days ago, the US House of Representatives also recommended the release of humanitarian funds to deal with the economic and humanitarian disasters facing the people of Afghanistan. Last month, 40 U.S. lawmakers urged Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen to release humanitarian aid to avert economic collapse in Afghanistan. However, the strongest appeal came from the UN chief, who warned that “Afghanistan has a nightmare” and that the world was running out of time to help the Afghan people. Antonio Guterres said children were being sold to feed their siblings, frozen health facilities were overflowing with malnourished children, people were burning their belongings to keep warm and the nation’s livelihood was running out.
During a news briefing in New York, a journalist reminded the UN chief that the situation in Afghanistan had worsened and asked him if he was ready to pick up the phone and talk to the Taliban to end the country’s economic blockade. Make the necessary adjustments. On which the Secretary General said that first of all it is clear that there is a serious situation of human rights violations in Afghanistan and (conditions for lifting the blockade) have not been fulfilled yet. However, Antonio Guterres reiterated his call for the Taliban’s failure not to be linked to the humanitarian crisis. “The need for humanitarian aid and the avoidance of economic catastrophe in Afghanistan is something we are fighting for, because the people of Afghanistan are in a very depressing situation,” he said. He further added that collective punishment of the people of Afghanistan would be a mistake just because the current rulers were not behaving properly. Stressing the need to separate the two, he said, “We will continue our operation on humanitarian grounds.” “We will continue to insist on the need for liquidity so that the economy is not ruined and the people are not left in a state of despair,” he said. At the same time, he said, the United Nations, along with human rights, would continue to insist on the question of terrorism and the question of comprehensive governance.
