Monitoring Desk
KABUL: The Taliban government wants the Afghan embassy to return to Kabul about $ 800,000, transferred to the account of the diplomatic mission, but Afghan Ambassador to Tajikistan Muhammad Zahir Agbar says the funds will not be returned.
The Taliban has no right to demand a refund, because the Afghan Embassy is an official department of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and therefore different amounts are received here, about which the Taliban have no right to ask questions, ”the diplomat said in an interview with Asia-Plus “December 23.
Information about the dispute over the $ 800,000 transferred to the Afghan Embassy in Dushanbe was published by the Kabul Pazhvok news agency .
According to the agency, in the last days of Ashraf Ghani’s rule, 786 thousand dollars were “mistakenly” transferred to the account of the Afghan embassy in Dushanbe, and now the Taliban have sent a letter with a request to return the money to Kabul.
The agency writes that the money was transferred deliberately, and then withdrawn from the bank account of the embassy.
“Firstly, we do not officially recognize the Taliban. On the other hand, who are the Taliban to demand that we return the money? The Afghan Embassy in Dushanbe is another small Afghanistan with a lot of people living and working here. About 10 thousand Afghans live and work in Dushanbe, whom we can help, ”says the Afghan Ambassador.
Agbar connects the dispute over the allegedly mistakenly received money with the position of the embassy in relation to the Taliban: “It is known that the sword of the embassy is sharp against them and fights against them,” Agbar said.
Pazhwok writes that the money was transferred to the expenses of the embassy, but Muhammad Zahir Agbar, after consulting with Amrullah Saleh, the former first deputy head of the Afghan government, withdrew it from the bank account of the embassy.
The agency published the text of a letter from the Taliban Ministry of Finance to the Afghan Embassy in Dushanbe, which states that on July 31, 2021, the Ministry of Finance, in addition to $ 87,000 for salaries and health insurance for diplomats and local workers, also mistakenly transferred another $ 785,628.
The Taliban finance ministry demanded that the additional money be “transferred as soon as possible to the state’s account in the Bank of Afghanistan.”
According to an unnamed official at the Afghan Embassy in Tajikistan, Pazhvok reports that “the money was transferred to Tajikistan in the last days of the previous government for salaries, insurance and expenses of the embassy for the next three years.”
According to a Pazhvok source, the embassy’s bank account in Dushanbe is currently closed.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Finance of Afghanistan, regarding the withdrawal of the specified amount from the bank account of the embassy, said that “this is official money transferred from an official address, so today or tomorrow, when our embassy activates its work, Agbar, wherever he is, will be I have to return them. “
The Kabul newspaper also notes that Muhammad Zahiri Agbar answered their questions via WhatsApp like this: “The Taliban regime and the Taliban letter are not official for us, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan and the First Vice President practically operate, the Embassy of Afghanistan in Tajikistan in all cases bears responsibility and carries out its tasks according to the instructions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the first vice-president. “
Courtesy: (asiaplustj.info)
