Return Afghan assets ASAP, China asks US

China’s permanent representative to the United Nations has again asked the US to immediately return Afghanistan its foreign assets.

Zhang Jun, addressing a UN Security Council session, lamented that no progress had been made in unfreezing Afghanistan’s reserves.

“The Afghan people need every bit of these resources. That’s why it’s unjustified to freeze Afghanistan’s foreign assets,” the diplomat quoted as saying by TASS news agency.

He urged the US to heed calls from the UN chief, human rights experts and humanitarian agencies and return the assets without any conditions as soon as possible.

Following the Taliban takeover in August last year, the Biden administration seized Afghanistan’s assets held in US banks.