Haji Nuruddin Azizi, Acting Minister of Trade and Industry of Afghanistan, told Reuters news agency: “Taliban has signed a temporary contract with Russia to supply Afghanistan with gasoline, diesel, gas and wheat.”
Azizi added that “his ministry is trying to diversify its trading partners, and Russia has offered the Taliban government a discount on the average global price of goods.”
The move is the Taliban’s first major international economic deal since they returned to power more than a year ago and could help ease the Islamist movement’s isolation, which has effectively alienated it from the global banking system.
No country officially recognizes the Taliban, who fought a 20-year insurgency against Western forces and their local Afghan allies before capturing Kabul as US troops withdrew.
Azizi said: This contract includes the annual supply of about one million tons of gasoline, one million tons of diesel, 500 thousand tons of liquefied gas and two million tons of wheat to Russia.
Russia’s energy and agriculture ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the deal. The office of Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who is in charge of oil and gas, has not yet responded.
Azizi said that international data shows that most Afghans live below the poverty line, and that his office works to support trade and the economy through international communications.
He added: “Afghans are in dire need, everything we do is for the sake of the national interests and the interests of the people.”
He noted that Afghanistan also receives some gas and oil from Iran and Turkmenistan and has strong trade relations with Pakistan, but wants to diversify.
The Taliban Foreign Ministry has condemned the decision of the United States to transfer the assets of the Central Bank of Afghanistan to a trust fund based in Switzerland, saying that this action is against international standards.
It comes after Washington announced it would transfer $3.5 billion in frozen Afghan assets to a new trust fund, which it said would be free of the Taliban and to help stabilize the collapsing economy. Afghanistan is used.
Abdul Qahar Balkhi, the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the Ministry considers the decision of the United States to transfer part of the reserves of the Central Bank of Afghanistan to Switzerland and use it for special purposes without Afghanistan’s involvement unacceptable and a violation of international standards.
He added: If these reserves are paid without considering the legitimate demands of Afghans, the Islamic Emirate will be forced to target all the individuals, institutions and companies that facilitate this illegal project and misuse of Central Bank reserves under the law. put under the pretext of humanitarian goals and so on, by imposing fines and banning all their activities.”
The U.S. said the Afghanistan fund, administered by a board of trustees, could pay for critical imports such as electricity, cover debt repayments to international financial institutions, and support Afghanistan’s status quo by allowing it to provide development aid and Also receive financial. Printing new currency
Although U.S. officials have been in talks with Taliban officials and Afghanistan’s central bank for months, Washington has said the money will not go to Afghanistan’s central bank until anti-money laundering safeguards are in place and are “free from political interference.” A diplomatic euphemism for the bankers’ appointment of bankers, instead of senior Taliban officials, two of whom are subject to US and UN sanctions.
Balkhi said that during the conversation with the American officials, the Taliban showed their willingness to submit the central bank to third-party supervision to follow the implementation of anti-money laundering and terrorist financing programs, and they showed that the central bank was independent.
Source: Lebanon Debate
