Putin urges US to compensate Afghanistan’s war harms, unfreeze assets

KABUL (Pajhwok): Russian President Vladimir Putin has asked the US to unfreeze Afghanistan’s assets and compensation for harm done during the years of occupation, according to a media report on Friday.

Speaking at the sixth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Astana on Thursday, Putin said that “to normalize the situation on the territory of Afghanistan, of course, it is necessary to jointly promote its economic growth”, a report in the Farsnews said.

“But first of all, we strongly urge [the US] to compensate for the damage caused to the Afghans during the years of occupation and unfreeze the illegally blocked Afghan funds,” the president stressed.

He expressed regret over the fact that Afghanistan “remains one of the most pressing security challenges for our region”.

“[My] colleagues already spoke about this today. After more than 20 years of the US and NATO military presence and the failure of their policies, the country has turned out to be unable to independently solve problems related to terrorist threats,” the Russian president noted.

He added that in order to improve the security situation in Afghanistan, it would be useful to turn to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and its regional antiterrorist structures.

Speaking of terrorism, Putin recalled the explosion at the Russian embassy in Kabul and a series of “continuous bloody terrorist attacks” in Afghanistan.

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