A Chinese envoy said on Wednesday that the overseas assets that belong to Afghanistan should be returned quickly and in full to the Afghan people.
Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, made the remarks at a Security Council meeting on cooperation between the UN and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
Zhang said the top priority for the international community is to make every effort to avoid a humanitarian crisis in the country.
The comment came days after U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order for diverting $3.5 billion from the frozen Afghan assets to compensate the families of 9/11 terror attacks' victims.
A worker of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) pushes a wheelbarrow loaded with aid supplies for a displaced Afghan family outside a distribution center on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, October 28, 2021. /Reuters
Afghanistan's central bank criticized Washington's plan last Saturday, saying its assets belong to the Afghan people.
"DAB (Da Afghanistan Bank) considers the latest decision of the U.S.A. on blocking FX (foreign exchange) reserves and allocating them to irrelevant purposes, injustice to the people of Afghanistan," the bank said in a statement.
The United States froze over $9 billion worth of assets belonging to the Afghan central bank after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan last August.
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Zhang also called on the international community to practice genuine multilateralism and oppose bloc politics.
He said a certain country, in particular, pursues unilateralism and hegemony, runs amok with power politics, harms the security and development interests of other countries, and provokes a new Cold War and geopolitical competition, severely undermining the international order and global strategic stability.
The international community needs to strengthen solidarity and cooperation and oppose confrontation and power politics, said the envoy.
China and the CSTO members are important partners with a longstanding friendship and mutual trust, he noted.
China stands ready to work with the CSTO members to deepen cooperation in the fields of the Belt and Road Initiative, economics and trade, security, people-to-people and cultural engagement, improve interconnectivity and promote the economic integration process, he added.
(With input from Xinhua, Reuters)