Joe Biden urged to reverse decision on frozen Afghan assets

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday called on US President Joe Biden to reconsider his decision to split $7 billion of frozen Afghan funds between victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and humanitarian aid.

Speaking at a press conference in Kabul, Karzai said the frozen funds should be used to ensure the stability of the Afghan currency and the country's financial system as a whole.

"The Afghan people are as much victims as those families who lost their loved ones," he said. "Withholding money or seizing money from the people of Afghanistan ... is unjust and unfair and an atrocity against the Afghan people."

The prominent Afghan leader called on the American people to acknowledge the suffering of the Afghan people.

Karzai said the Afghan people were paying the price even though Osama bin Laden, who is credited as the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, spent time in Afghanistan but later returned to Pakistan, where he was eventually killed.

No Afghan was among the terrorists involved in the attack on New York's World Trade Center in 2001.

On Saturday, Afghanistan's Central Bank called for the reversal of the decision and the release of the funds, saying that they are not the property of governments, parties or groups.

Afghanistan has approximately $9 billion in assets, including the $7 billion in the US. The remaining funds are mostly held in Germany, the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland.