The tragic events of September 11, 2001 changed our world permanently. Although those who staged those events have not yet been identified, Washington unequivocally declared a “war on terror”, directed at the overthrow of Al Qaeda (a terrorist organization banned in Russia) and the Taliban regime (banned in Russia), supported by American satellites. But it is also common knowledge that al-Qaeda was created by the CIA with the money from the monarchical regimes of the Persian Gulf to actively oppose the Soviet forces, who were the actual fighters against terrorism.

As time passed, the United States no longer needed the boogeyman who had done the dirty work for Washington, hence the decision was made to “destroy” al-Qaeda by “pinning” the tragic events of 9/11 on it. However, this war was only proclaimed on paper, and it was never won, as the US still needed a tool to continuously threaten states in the Middle East region. At the same time, Washington, while carrying out its aggressive plans, occupied Afghanistan for 20 years in a mean and cynical manner, in violation of all international norms, and took no real action there, except for increasing poppy crops and then helping the Taliban to transport drugs from that Asian country.

Misery and hunger became commonplace for Afghans during this period. Many left their country in search of security or better opportunities, whether as a result of the US invasion, during the brazen arbitrariness of the US and its satellites for 20 years, or after the return of the Taliban and their seizure of power. The wounds of that day for the Afghan people remain open till this very moment, and one wonders who will answer for all this and make up for the huge losses suffered by the Afghans. As you can see, the US and its allies are in no hurry to do so and, moreover, are trying to pay with Afghan money for the victims of the sad events of 9/11, which the Afghan people had nothing to do with.

Twenty years later, the American style of “nation building” clearly failed in Afghanistan. And such a deafening collapse was documented when the West rushed to pack up and hastily evacuate Afghanistan last August, leaving the country facing its worst humanitarian crisis. As international organisations struggled to find the necessary funds to feed the starving Afghans, President Joe Biden found no other solution than to seize assets belonging to the previous Afghan government. The US Democrat has solemnly signed an executive order dividing the Afghan funds between the victims of the September 11 attacks and much needed help for Afghanistan in rebuilding the country.

When the Afghan government collapsed last August, and the Taliban took control of the country, the US quickly froze the assets of Afghanistan’s Central Bank. The idea was to prevent any use of resources by the Taliban government. Very few Afghans knew much about such assets and their value until they were frozen. It was later revealed that the frozen amount was about $9 billion, of which $7 billion were deposited in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the rest was in European banks. The reason why the former Afghan government chose the US Federal Bank was the institution’s high credibility and prestige around the world. The recent decision by the US government to allocate half of those $7 billion it had frozen to compensate the families of 9/11 victims and use the rest for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan came as a big shock to Afghans around the world.

Ever since the US government froze these assets, the Taliban have been constantly calling for their release. Few people in Afghanistan know the actual purpose of the precious currency reserves held outside the country. Many believe that these assets serve as reserve funds to help the Afghan government in times of extreme need or emergency when alternative means of financing become unavailable. While governments have the right to use such funds in extreme situations and financial emergencies, this should only be done as a last resort. The actual purpose of these hard-earned foreign exchange reserves is to ensure the stability of Afghanistan’s central bank and the monetary discipline of the value of afghani, the national currency.

The US government’s decision to divide the assets has caused a sense of grief and despair among Afghans all over the world. They are surprised that the de facto rulers of Afghanistan are legally linked to the people of the country, who are the real owners of these assets. The vast majority of Afghans believe that these funds belong to them and the whole country. The Taliban have called this move, ordered by “great democrat” Joe Biden on Afghanistan, “theft”, which reflects the lowest level of “moral decay”. Many Afghans also criticised the US action, saying it was “unfair and vile”. Even former Afghan President Hamid Karzai reminded Washington that Afghans were also victims of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden’s past and called on the American president to reverse his unjust edict. But he did not question who was likely to compensate the Afghans for their colossal losses as a result of the illegal occupation by the US and NATO and the arbitrariness that the occupiers had perpetrated on Afghan soil.

The Taliban, who fought insurgent warfare against the US-led forces for 20 years and now control the entire country, have not been recognised by the US or any other country, mainly because of their human rights abuses. However, with abject poverty gripping the country, not only is Washington not helping the Afghans, it is looking for different ways to further rob them. It plans to put $3.5 billion in frozen funds into a special fund to support people affected by 9/11, at least for now, as the cost of supporting the claimants is estimated at $10 billion over the next 10 years alone. Compensation, reparation and ensuring that victims and their families are well taken care of is a legitimate right in international relations. President Biden’s decision to release frozen Afghan assets will naturally be welcomed in a midterm election year in America, but it is very difficult to understand why the assets of poor and destitute Afghans are being used to supplement the US compensation scheme. It also begs the question: what have the Afghans got to do with it, if, as the US media itself reported, the Saudis were the terrorists. Let them pay compensation to the victims of Saudi terrorists. This is the law, and everyone must obey it, including the US leadership.

The irony is that 20 years after 9/11, the bleeding wounds remain open both for the American victims, as a result of Washington’s mindlessly aggressive policies, and for the Afghan people, who have suffered for some 20 years under the oppression of occupation by the US and NATO forces. The US federal government seems to have failed to find a suitable funding mechanism for victims to extend this compensation scheme to those who deserve it, so it uses Afghan funds instead. Similarly, the Taliban last year rushed to seize control of Afghanistan by quietly and simply expelling foreign forces, primarily Americans. But they did not take into account how to finance their rise to power or their responsibility to provide basic necessities to all Afghans, where to find money to rebuild the country, after the plundering of its national wealth by the US.

In this difficult environment, the new Afghan government, trying to find a way out of the economic crisis, decided to step up efforts to rebuild relations with the rich Gulf States. In this context, a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) delegation met for the first time in Qatar with Afghan representatives. Representatives of individual GCC member states had previously met with the Taliban in various capacities, mainly to discuss the delivery of humanitarian aid, security and logistics. While the very fact that a meeting like the one in Doha was a remarkable event in itself, participants were able to exchange valuable information and deliver important messages.

Ironically, since the end of the war in Afghanistan, the country has been plunged into a humanitarian crisis by the US and NATO due to economic isolation, depleted financial resources and an inability to provide basic social services. At a meeting in Doha, GCC officials stressed the importance of addressing the urgent humanitarian needs of the Afghan people as international reports reflected the grim reality. According to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), Afghanistan is facing the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, with needs exceeding those of Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Tens of millions of lives are at stake. The WFP has found that 22.8 million people are at acute risk, while 8.7 million face extreme levels of hunger, indicating a serious risk of widespread hunger. The UN estimates that 97% of Afghans could fall into poverty before the end of 2022.

Afghanistan is now trying every way possible to establish a peaceful life and provide basic livelihoods for the Afghan people. And a number of countries have come to the aid of this Asian country, with the exception of the United States, which is still trying to rob poverty-stricken Afghans, using their frozen money for its own selfish interests.

Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of RANS, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Against the background of the developments in Ukraine in recent days, the US, in the context of adjusting its policy in Central Asia (CA), urgently convened a C5+1 online meeting on February 28, with the participation of foreign ministers: Kazakhstan’s Mukhtar Tileuberdi, Kyrgyzstan’s Ruslan Kazakbaev, Tajikistan’s Sirojiddin Muhriddin, Turkmenistan’s Rasit Meredow, Uzbekistan’s Abdulaziz Kamilov, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

According to the foreign ministries of the CA states, “participants discussed pressing issues on the international and regional agenda, including the situation in Ukraine and its impact on the Central Asian region.”

The US initiative in convening this meeting and Secretary Blinken’s participation in it demonstrate the undeniable importance of Central Asia not only in their regional policy, but also in their actions towards Russia and its allies, primarily the CSTO and EAEU. Moreover, the White House’s interest in Central Asia and the C5+1 format itself has increased in recent days in terms of clarifying the region’s stance on the Ukrainian issue and bringing the Central Asian states over to unconditionally support Washington’s policy.

That is why the said online meeting was initiated by the White House on the eve of consideration of the openly anti-Russian US resolution on Ukraine at the UN, and Antony Blinken, under various pretexts, took steps to win the C5 foreign ministers’ support for the resolution. Secretary Blinken also confirmed on Twitter that the reason for this online meeting was to discuss the situation in Ukraine.

In the course of clarifying the position of the Central Asian states on Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, the United States was probing, with a view to coaxing the C5 states, the options of returning not only the USAID programs with its investments and grants to the region, but also of reopening US transit and even full-fledged military air bases in Central Asia. At the same time, the issues of strengthening practical cooperation in the economic, security and climate change fields as well as the situation in Afghanistan were touched upon, but this was already very superficial, as this was not the purpose of Blinken’s convening of this C5+1 meeting.

Nevertheless, the Central Asian states have shown that they are no longer “natives who can be bought with American beads,” and Washington’s subversive aims in the region are already clear to all, as was showcased by the US involvement in the January events in Kazakhstan, its attempts to destabilize Kyrgyzstan in recent years and the situation on the Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border. It is not surprising, therefore, that during the March 3 vote at the UN on the US-proposed resolution on Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan abstained, while Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan did not vote.

However, there was a statement by Sadyr Japarov, President of Kyrgyzstan, supporting Russia’s special operation in Ukraine and Russia’s decisive actions to protect civilians in Donbass, while also pointing to Kiev’s responsibility for the failure of the Minsk agreements. “Kyrgyzstan notes with great disappointment that today, instead of unification, the world is more divided into those right and wrong. In this regard, the minister noted that today the UN Security Council has a special responsibility to maintain peace and security,” the Foreign Ministry of Kyrgyzstan said in a statement on the Ukrainian issue.

Kazakhstan has offered its peacekeeping services and a platform for talks between Moscow and Kiev, if they agree. On March 1, at an extraordinary congress of the Nur Otan party, renamed Amanat the day before, Kazakhstan’s President Tokayev stressed: “As the country that hosted the OSCE Summit in 2010, we insist on the principle of the indivisibility of Eurasian security. I stated this during a visit to Moscow on February 10. The principle of indivisibility and common security implies mutual understanding based on mutual trust. Unfortunately, this has not happened. The Minsk agreements remained on paper, leading to military action on Ukrainian territory.”

Certainly, this reaction of the Central Asian states to Washington’s attempts to “rally them against Russia” has frankly “disappointed” the Anglo-Saxons. And a manifestation of this was a proposal on March 1 by a British MP, Margaret Hodge, to consider sanctions against Kazakhstan “for supporting Putin.”

However, this is not the first time the words “sanctions” and “Kazakhstan” have been heard in the British parliament. After the January events, the same Margaret Hodge proposed sanctions against Kazakhstan’s “kleptocratic elite,” clearly showing London’s “disappointment” that its preorganized unrest and anti-government protests in that country were thwarted by the CSTO and Moscow.

Against this background, British Ambassador Kathy Leach was summoned to the Foreign Ministry of Kazakhstan on March 2 to seek clarification from Britain following statements by MP Hodge to “punish Kazakhstan.”

Overall, however, it should be noted that the US has recently stepped up its efforts to combat Russian influence in Central Asia, in particular through the use of non-governmental organizations and the so-called independent media.

In Kazakhstan alone, for example, the total number of NGOs has grown significantly over the past 15 years: from around 2,000 in 2009 to 22,000 now! According to a report at a recent Civil Society Forum in Astana, Minister of Social Development Darkhan Kaletaev pointed out that approximately 200 Kazakhstani NGOs receive foreign funding, 70% of which comes from the United States.

In addition, the main objective of most US-supported information projects in Kazakhstan is to mentally and psychologically separate the population of the republic from Russia and to undermine Russia’s position in Central Asia. The emphasis is on young people in the hope that, in time, people brought up on Western “democratic” values and not inclined to cooperate with Russia will come to power in the country. An important role in such subversive work by the US is played by the Internet resource Karavansaray, sponsored by the US Central Command of the Armed Forces (CENTCOM), which regularly posts publications aimed at discrediting the Russian military presence in Central Asia, spreading misinformation about the alleged threat to the Central Asian countries of a Russian military invasion.

Washington’s subversive plans in Central Asia are actively “facilitated” by Britain and its representatives in the region. On February 15, the Kyrgyzstan’s government newspaper, Kyrgyz Tuusu, published an article by Melis Sovet uulu, which touched on the subject of NGOs in that republic and the role played by British Ambassador Charles Garrett, a career MI6 intelligence officer. According to StanRadar.com, Ambassador Charles Garrett is instructing a “fifth column” in the country; in 2020, he and US State Department officials met with local journalists and bloggers in Kyrgyzstan, who were asked to look for any irregularities in the vote count in favor of pro-government parties for a fee. In order to improve “outreach,” the ambassador offered to donate new equipment to loyal media, and USAID and the Soros Foundation, known for their close ties to US intelligence services, provided a grant of some $2.5 million, which included funds promised to media representatives as a “royalty for carrying out embassy assignments.”

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

After keeping it under direct occupation, destroying the country for 20 years – and failing to militarily defeat the Taliban (banned in Russia) – Joe Biden’s executive order to simply seize half of Afghanistan’s little over US$7 billion to use it to pay to the victims of 9/11 is just a mockery of the “values” that the US always claims to hold. With the world’s richest country stealing from probably one of the poorest countries in the world where millions, including children, are starving, serious questions about the very war that the US fought for twenty years have arisen. If the US were to ultimately ‘compensate’ the victims by paying them – and not by defeating the perpetrators of 9/11 – why did the US stay in Afghanistan for two decades and kill hundreds of thousands of people, including innocent civilians? Besides the fact that the assets being seized include years of savings of common people of Afghanistan means that common Afghans – who played literally no role in 9/11 and who actually suffered immensely from the US invasion of Afghanistan for twenty years – will be paying out of their pockets for the loss that victims of 9/11 families faced, the very decision to seize Afghanistan’s assets means that the Joe Biden administration is bent upon inflicting as much damage to Afghanistan as possible even after formally withdrawing from the country. This, in practical terms, means that the US war on Afghanistan is not over.

A travesty of justice as it already is, the utter sense of injustice is further exacerbated by the fact that none of the 19 hijackers who blasted planes into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on the morning of 9/11 actually came from Afghanistan or was of Afghan origin. Should the people of Afghanistan – who have suffered excruciatingly more than the victims of 9/11 collectively – be made to pay for a crime that they did not do in the first place, or conspired to do at all?

Even if the US administration believes that the Afghan Taliban supported al-Qaeda (terrorist organization ,banned in Russia), let’s not forget that it was the US itself that made a pact with the same Taliban to get out of Afghanistan. Yet, it has not recognised them as a legitimate government of Afghanistan. As John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said, “There’s a legitimate question to be asked as to how a country’s sovereign wealth can be used to satisfy the debt of an entity that is not recognised as the sovereign government.”

Besides it, the money does not belong, and has never belonged, to the Afghan Taliban. By making common Afghans pay for the Taliban’s support for al-Qaeda, the US administration – and its judicial system – has exposed its utter failure in being able to differentiate between declared terrorists and common people. Going by the US logic, every single person living in Afghanistan, many of whom were not even born when 9/11 happened 21 years ago, is a terrorist – a supporter of the Taliban and al-Qaeda and responsible for the loss that families of the victims of 9/11 suffered.

This prejudiced extension of responsibility to all the Afghans is a mockery of their own loses. As data compiled by Costs of War project of Watson Institute of Brown University shows, more than two-thirds of Afghans were suffering from serious mental health issues caused by the war as early as 2009.

What about the terrorist militias, accountable to no one in Afghanistan, that the CIA created in Afghanistan itself and the crimes they did? According to a 2019 report of Watson Institute,

“the militias reportedly have committed serious human rights abuses, including numerous extrajudicial killings of civilians. CIA sponsorship ensures that their operations are clouded in secrecy. There is virtually no public oversight of their activities or accountability for grave human rights abuses.”

Shouldn’t Afghans sue the CIA – and by extension the US government itself – for the crimes it did in Afghanistan?

What about the extent of abuse and mistreatment the US military extended to thousands of Afghans in its secret jails – including those at Bagram airbase – in its so-called ‘war on terror’? According to a 2010 report of Open Society Foundation, “confinement conditions” in the US military run jails included systematic – and utterly inhuman techniques – of torture, including “exposure to excessive cold”, “exposure to excessive light”, “sleep deprivation”, “denial of religious duties”, “nudity upon arrival”, and, among other things, “lack of transparency.”

These methods, as the report further shows, contradict the very “field manuals” the US military officially uses to conduct its war. The abuse extended to the detainees is, thus, not only systematic, but also criminal. However, given the fact that these crimes were committed by the US military, rather than Afghans, means that there will be no repercussions here, nor would Afghan victims of these crimes be offered anything from the US taxpayers’ money.

At the same time, by not allowing Afghans to use their own money to tackle the extremely poor economic conditions, the US is condemning Afghanistan, even after formally withdrawing from Afghanistan, to a very long term dependence on foreign aid, assistance and charity.

While some in the US believe that not giving the money back to Afghanistan’s Central Bank will starve the Taliban regime and force them to change their ways of rule, it remains that the ultimate burden will be felt by the common Afghans. The question, therefore, is:

If, in the wake of the disaster that looms large over Afghanistan, millions perish due to the lack of resources, would somebody in the US still file a case in any court of law to hold the Biden administration accountable for directly condemning via am executive order millions to death? This is unlikely to happen, given that US democracy is always seen righteous and perfectly judicious.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

At the end of December 2021, the Biden administration, in another of its now blatantly false propaganda campaigns, tried to convince the world of the supposedly “humane treatment of the people of Afghanistan.”

It should be recalled that at the time the matter concerned the delivery of one million doses of coronavirus vaccine produced by the US company Johnson & Johnson to Kabul as part of US humanitarian aid. Moreover, the damaging health effects of this particular US vaccine were openly discussed in the US itself even back then, leading, among others, to the closure of vaccination centers in North Carolina and Colorado, which was covered by none other than The Wall Street Journal. Even then, about a hundred complaints received by the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention after the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine prompted its medical staff to take a closer look at this anti-Covid-19 drug and “duly appreciate” the Biden administration’s “humanitarian gift” of this brand of vaccine to Afghanistan. At the time, there were also suspicions as to whether this “donation move” was not only a way for the United States to get rid of a failed vaccine, but also an opportunity to thereby “punish” Kabul for the scandalous expulsion of the US troops from that country in August.

And here is new evidence of the alleged “humane attitude of the White House towards the Afghan people” demonstrated on February 11 by President Joe Biden signing an executive order blocking $7 billion in assets of the Central Bank of Afghanistan, which are held in American financial institutions. As a result, these assets of the Central Bank of Afghanistan will remain in the US. Half of them will be held “for possible compensation of claims in US courts,” and about $3.5 billion will be put into a US trust fund “to help Afghans.”

It is remarkable that Biden signed the order just hours before the US Department of Justice was to present to a federal judge an action plan regarding the frozen funds, amid urgent calls from US lawmakers and the UN to use them to address the dire crisis that has worsened since the Taliban (a movement banned in Russia) seized power in August last year. According to senior US administration officials, the money blocked on US territory was deposited in Kabul’s accounts as a result of two decades of foreign financial support, thus legally justifying the US’s right to solely dispose of these finances. With the signing of this order, all of the foreign holdings of the Central Bank of Afghanistan held in the US will now be transferred to a single consolidated account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Washington notoriously froze Afghan funds held in the US since the Taliban came to power, explaining that the new Afghan government is not recognized as legitimate by the world community. However, the worsening humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has led to increased pressure on Washington by the UN and other states not indifferent to the plight of ordinary Afghans.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has already accused Washington of exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and hindering the restoration of normal life in the republic, as the situation is largely the result of a failed US and NATO campaign. “The $7 billion seizure of assets held by the Central Bank of Afghanistan in the United States, announced by President Biden’s executive order, raises questions about the sincerity of White House statements about the desire to help stabilize the country,” Zakharova said.

The decision by the head of the White House to divide the amount in half is also noteworthy: the first half is to be distributed to the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks. However, there were no Afghan nationals among the perpetrators of the biggest terrorist attack in US history. “Why should the Afghan people, who were in no way involved in organizing these attacks, now have to pay for them?”, Zakharova notes. In addition, according to Maria Zakharova, Washington’s claim that it has the right to give the second half of the $3.5 billion in aid to Afghans as humanitarian aid cannot be called anything but a mockery, as the money already belongs to the Afghan people.

But another remarkable thing is that when Joe Biden blocked the Afghan funds held in the US, he did not say a word about the reparations to be paid to Afghanistan by the US itself for the military and material damage that the US-led armed coalition was inflicting on this country and its people for 20 years!

The US administration’s decision not to return the assets of the Central Bank of Afghanistan is no different from the “behavior of bandits,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on February 15. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said that such an example once again confirms that the “rules-based” world order, which the US allegedly advocates, does not protect the rights of the weak and justice, but only supports the hegemony of the United States. He added that as a party to the crisis in Afghanistan, the US should stop exacerbating the suffering of the Afghan people, release those assets, lift unilateral sanctions and acknowledge its obligations to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in that country.

Commenting on Washington’s actions, surprising unanimity was shown by the Taliban and the country’s former authorities. “The theft by the US of money blocked and belonging to the people of Afghanistan and taking possession of it is an indicator of the human and moral decline of the country and the people,” Mohammad Naeem, spokesman for the Taliban’s political office in Qatar, wrote on Twitter. At the same time, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, according to Tolo News, said: “Washington, for the sake of future generations of Afghans, must immediately return the funds that belong to the people of Afghanistan, not the governments.”

Meanwhile, US and international media stress that the decision to transfer billions in frozen assets from the account of the Central Bank of Afghanistan to other uses is plunging the country deeper and deeper into economic disaster. Not only that, but also that the move will effectively bankrupt the country.

Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General, recalled regarding Joe Biden’s decision on the Afghan assets: “We have said on several occasions and we’ve called many times for the release of Afghanistan’s frozen assets.” He said the UN believes that humanitarian aid alone is not enough to cover the needs of the Afghan people.

And against this background, attention is drawn to a February 16 initiative by British Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss, who, on behalf of Britain and with the UN, intends to hold an international virtual conference “to help Afghanistan,” in the hope of raising $4.4 billion. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Truss, true to her servile allegiance to Washington, did not even attempt to criticize the blatantly inhumane move by the Biden’s administration to block the Afghan fund, the tightening of the humanitarian disaster in that country by the United States, clearly expressing “solidarity” with the actions of the current US administration. In addition, Elizabeth Truss does not even indicate where or how she expects to use the international funds raised in this way, or whether they will once again be blocked by Washington “for domestic needs” and to at least partially cover the costs of the predatory Afghan military campaign. All this is especially so in view of the provisions of the order signed by Joe Biden on February 11, under which all the foreign holdings of the Central Bank of Afghanistan held in the US will now be transferred to a single consolidated account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Vladimir Odintsov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The events that took place in Kazakhstan’s in early January still loom large. Kazakhstan is still tracing the instigators and participants of the January unrest, as law enforcement officers find arms caches in the cities and countryside almost every day. Deputy Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan Marat Syzdykov has recently confirmed that the country’s authorities are leading a full-scale investigation into the January events.

The investigation itself is classified; for that reason, all charges against the individuals that had been apprehended and suspected in the “sponsoring” of those events are yet to be brought up. Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly clear that the January unrest in Kazakhstan was pre-arranged and pre-meditated. This is evidenced by the well-documented facts and tell-tale signs of masterminds pulling the strings: centralized control from the outside as weapons were seized from the shops in a centralized manner — cars were driving up and taking the cargo.

As time goes on, it is becoming increasingly clear that chaos in the republic could have reached colossal magnitude sweeping across not only Kazakhstan but also neighboring countries. With this in mind, the on-going hysteria driven by the US and their Western allies about “the imminent Russian invasion into Ukraine” is understandable since it hinges on the grudge that the West has been holding against the first successful CSTO operation in Kazakhstan carried out under real-life conditions.

Although the investigation into the January unrest in Kazakhstan is not over yet, the fingerprints of the US, UK and a range of other Washington’s allies are all over the place. It does not really come as a surprise considering that the bosses of the current US administration have a long-standing relationship with former senior Kazakh officials. First of all, now-detained former head of Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee Karim Massimov had been “in bed” with Hunter Biden, the US president’s son involved in a range of drug and sex-related controversies as well as a scandal regarding Burisma company in Ukraine. Even before Ukraine, Hunter Biden tried to establish “Bidens’ family rule” over former Soviet republics, including Kazakhstan in 2012–2014. A testament to this effort is a remarkable group picture featuring Joe Biden standing by Karim Massimov while Hunter is beside an “enigmatic” Kenes Rakishev, a fabulously rich Kazakh businessman. He was the one “watching over” Hunter Biden in Kazakhstan, precisely after which his “successful business-era” began.

The US-led Western information warfare also played a huge role in those events. The allied CSTO assistance to Kazakhstan exposed many resources and personalities. Those include, first of all, Western-backed “activists”: Facebook saw a lot of posts calling for demonstrations to prevent the participation of other CSTO members in this mission. In this way, Western resources attempted to exert pressure on MPs who were to approve the decision to dispatch peace-keeping forces to Kazakhstan.

Another testament to this are the results of information warfare instigated in Kyrgyzstan where protests were organized via Facebook by a certain Perizat Saitburkhanova, closely tied with Next TV, a media resource pertaining to Ravshan Jeenbekov, an opposition and pro-Western political figure.

The Voice of America editorial team, a body that is recognized by the Russian Ministry of Justice as a foreign agent, spearheaded the US-driven information warfare. On January 7, Voice of America published a slanderous propaganda report dubbed “Russia and CSTO allies entered Kazakhstan.” Moreover, the headline of this American resource on Twitter was much more aggressive and biased — “Russia and CSTO allies OCCUPY Kazakhstan.”

At an apparent instigation by the US, a country that has been exerting external control over Ukraine, in the wake of the January unrest, Ukrainian authorities published a guide with the advice on how to smear both CSTO and the Kazakh President Tokayev who invited peacekeepers. The Ukrainian media also got “The Patriot’s glossary” developed by the so-called Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security under the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine that dictates in what expressions the Ukrainian media should or should not describe the events in Kazakhstan.

By the way, the crisis in the relations between Belarus and Ukraine was developing along the same lines: it started off with information attacks, training of nationalist militants and arms shipments from Ukraine to Belarus. Then Ukraine turned into a haven for Belarusian extremists that were not welcomed by Europe. Not long after, Kyiv switched to direct hostile actions at the official level.

On January 18, Segodnya.kz Telegram channel reported that the UK intelligence agencies took part in the information warfare against Kazakhstan, but failed in their efforts and switched to a “Plan B.” The channel, in particular, highlighted a report by The Guardian citing, as is customary for the British, “some unknown sources in the Kazakh capital.” The Guardian contended that Nursultan Nazarbayev and Kassym-Jomart Tokayev were allegedly negotiating redistribution of assets in the republic. In other words, the article by the Guardian was directly aimed at fostering negative attitude towards Tokayev, a Kazakh leader outside of the British calculation. Meanwhile, the Kazakh people, for most part, have a pretty positive opinion of him.

According to Segodnya.kz, the presence of a nation-wide spy ring of the UK and US intelligence agencies is evident: consider just the NGOs — the Soros Foundation (banned in Russia), USAID (banned in Russia), the British Council (also banned in Russia). There is hardly any doubt that the interests of Kazakhstan itself are simply non-existent for Western powers.

The Western involvement in the events in Kazakhstan is also evidenced by its very response to them. As a matter of fact, on January 20, members of the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the January events in Kazakhstan. During the deliberations, MEPs put Tokayev’s actions in the spotlight as a number of deputies called for sanctions to be snapped on top Kazakh officials. For that reason, if anyone had thought that the conflict in Kazakhstan had an internal origin, the European Parliament’s resolution clearly showed who was the final mastermind and would-be beneficiary of the coup d’état. As the now-routine tradition demands, the so-called “civilized world” rushed to defend “peaceful protesters,” engaged in not-so-peaceful seizing of administrative buildings, weapons, bank and shop robberies, shooting police officers and bystanders.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Following Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow’s decision that he will hand over power to a “younger generation”, Turkmenistan’s transit has become a highly debated topic.  Experts note that outside powers such as Turkey, Pakistan and the US, which would like to draw Turkmenistan into their orbit of influence, to the Taliban (a movement banned in Russia), which has its traditional spring and summer offensive starting on March 1, may try to take advantage of the transit. Groups in northern Afghanistan also pose a threat, and there is almost no one to stand against them in Turkmenistan.

However, the possibility of the influence of Afghanistan’s internal instability zone from Herat to Badakhshan on Turkmenistan is low today, since the Taliban leadership has so far had a peaceful relationship with Ashgabat, but the jihadists could well play “the role of fuse”. The Taliban are unlikely to go beyond the borders of Afghanistan, as they are not interested in doing so today, and there is infighting between warlords within the country itself. The countries are also attempting to establish economic cooperation; Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov meets regularly with the Taliban; Ashgabat and Kabul hold talks on electricity supply, the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) gas pipeline project and railway expansion.

As for the “problem of the transit of power”, it has arisen in almost all the former CIS republics in recent years, especially in Central Asia – everywhere there is a change of elites, a new generation of 30-40-year-old politicians comes who are not related to the Soviet era. Thus, in addition to Turkmenistan, a similar father-son transfer scenario has already taken place in Azerbaijan, quite successfully due to the personal qualities of the successor: a strong leader, a strong son. A similar transit of power is expected in Tajikistan, where the country’s leader, Emomali Rahmon, has ruled the country since 1991 – longer than anyone in the former Soviet Union. Uzbekistan’s experience with the division of Islam Karimov’s legacy clearly does not suit Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow; in Kazakhstan, there has essentially been no transit, but a “civilized divorce”.

Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow cited reaching the Prophet’s age of 63 (according to the Koran, the Prophet Mohammed died at 63) as the reason for his decision.

According to the current legislation, only a citizen over 40 years of age, who has lived in the country for the last 15 years and has no criminal record can occupy the post of head of state. The two latter criteria immediately disqualify opposition candidates living abroad, such as Nurmukhamed Khanamov, leader of the opposition Republican Party of Turkmenistan, who lives in Austria.

The only son of the Turkmen leader, Serdar Berdimuhamedow, who just turned 40, the minimum age for the presidency, has long been tacitly appointed as successor. Exactly one year ago, his father appointed him as “deputy prime minister”, even though there is no prime minister in the Turkmen government; the head of government is the president himself. It is noteworthy that Berdimuhamedow senior himself was also deputy prime minister in 2006, when President Niyazov died.

That is, in fact, Serdar has already become the deputy of his father, who has put his son in control of Turkmenistan’s energy sector, the most important sector of the local economy.

Serdar, who has long been called “Prince” by Turkmens (incidentally, his name means “commander ” in Turkmen), has had a boost in his career since his father became president 15 years ago. Serdar began his active “working life” in the diplomatic service in 2008-11 when he worked as a minister-counsellor at the embassy in Moscow, where he also received a diplomatic degree, which he did not have at the time of his appointment. After graduating from the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Academy, he was sent to Geneva as a counsellor to the Permanent Mission of Turkmenistan to the United Nations, where Serdar came with his family, sending his children to one of the most elite schools in Switzerland. He then returned to work at the Turkmen Foreign Ministry, where he was responsible for foreign policy on the European track, having served as a member of parliament and as the republic’s minister of industry.  Since becoming deputy prime minister, Serdar has intensified his diplomatic activity: as chairman of an intergovernmental commission he has worked with Russia, supervised economic cooperation with Japan and made several visits to China and Uzbekistan, which was certainly a test of the willingness of Turkmenistan’s partners to accept Serdar as the future president.

Turkmenistan’s election race officially began on February 14, with polling day set for March 12. The candidates have not yet been announced, except it is known that the president’s son Serdar has submitted documents to the CEC. By the way, in the last elections, in 2017, nine candidates were registered.

Although it is not yet fully certain that Serdar will succeed in following in his father’s footsteps, it is nevertheless expected that neither foreign nor domestic policy is likely to change; the country will continue its policy of neutrality. Although Berdimuhamedow junior attended the EEU meeting in Kazan in May 2021 as deputy prime minister, Ashgabat is unlikely to join the EEU or the CSTO anytime soon. Berdimuhamedow senior will retain the post of speaker of the upper house of parliament, almost replicating the Kazakhstan’s model of having an “elder wise comrade” over the president. The current president is expected to continue to oversee all general policies, especially foreign policy, giving his son a full load primarily in economic affairs, economic management and social issues. In fact, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow will rule on behalf of his son until Serdar “gets the feel of it” and makes all other actors in domestic and foreign policy respect him. The transit of power will happen quite smoothly and quietly, there should be no internal problems with the tribal factor.

Among the big players, China, Russia and Turkey are the most interested in special relations with Turkmenistan. And, of course, the US, especially after losing its regional position with its hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan. Therefore, Washington will no doubt actively seek to “gain trust” of the new future president of Turkmenistan, using for this purpose the entire range of already known tools – from the flooding of various NGOs, to “super-beneficial” offers on behalf of USAID, CIA.

With 10% of the world’s gas reserves, Turkmenistan is a very important country in providing gas to its neighbors, especially China and Iran. But Turkey and Western Europe also want Turkmen gas very much. However, Ashgabat cannot yet decide how best to get it there: to lay a pipe under the Caspian Sea (which now requires the consent of all the Caspian Sea countries and any of them may block this issue for their own various reasons), or to join the Soviet-era pipeline that goes to Europe via Russia?

As for Turkey, it certainly has its eye on Turkmenistan as an important link in Erdoğan’s revival of the Ottoman Empire, the Organization of Turkic States. However, it is unlikely that Erdoğan will succeed in this regard, since despite his common religion and Turkic origins, this country has a cult of a president who frankly does not need any “outside” competitors.

It should not also be forgotten that Turkmenistan is a very closed country, comparable in some respects to North Korea: information from the country is extremely scarce, almost exclusively official and only on the most important occasions. The fact that Turkmenistan has recently experienced difficult economic times is only evident from anecdotal evidence in the form of reports of huge bread queues that occasionally appear in various cities of the country.

The model of succession in Turkmenistan will now certainly be watched in many countries, especially in Central Asia. In the country itself, the situation is likely to remain frozen at the current level: Serdar will be gaining experience in running the state under his father’s guidance, and following his advice he is unlikely to make major changes in foreign policy. All the more so because the family of the head of the republic is satisfied with the current situation, including the country’s closure from the outside world. This situation is likely to continue, following the example of Saudi Arabia, until Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow dies, or until Serdar manages to lock all local clans into himself by starting to conduct “independent politics”.

So far, it is difficult to imagine that internal or external risks have had a significant impact on the continuation of Berdimuhamedow senior’s line.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

When the US decided to withdraw its military forces from Afghanistan in mid-2021, Joe Biden assured his Afghan counterpart, Ashraf Ghani, of full US support against the Taliban (banned in Russia) to preserve the so-called “democratic” gains the country made during twenty years of US occupation. Evidence that we have previously examined clearly indicates that the US badly failed in its two most fundamental objectives in Afghanistan: defeating the Taliban and reconstructing the war-torn nation. With various US presidents having clearly misled their own people with regards to the war in Afghanistan, believing Biden’s words for siding with the people of Afghanistan forever could only be naïve. As it stands, the Biden administration is not only not siding with the people of Afghanistan, but is also imperceptibly supporting the Taliban, including the Haqqani network it once considered its most dangerous enemy in Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, 2nd February the US treasury department issued some “clarifications” with regards to the possibility of transferring aid – including financial aid – to Afghanistan even if it includes transactions, contracts, agreements involving the Taliban and/or Haqqani network. That the US did not want to publicise this development is evident from the fact the treasury issued new guidelines as “frequently asked questions – newly added.”

While the US official narrative is that they want to “help” the people of Afghanistan to survive the economic crisis looming large over Afghanistan, the US could have very well “helped” these beleaguered people with aid transferred via the UN or other dozens of NGOs and agencies working in Afghanistan. Washington, on the contrary, decided to take an alternative route that leads directly to better ties with the Afghan Taliban. The question, therefore, is: why?

Against the context of fast developing regional scenario – in particular with regards to brewing tensions between Washington and Moscow over NATO’s expansion to Ukraine, and with China over Taiwan – the US appears to have rediscovered the strategic importance for Afghanistan, even if it is led by the Taliban, to advance its interests in a more effective manner. Therefore, even though the US continues to emphasise that they will not recognise the Taliban, the steps it is actually taking point to gradual legitimation, if not outright recognition, of the Taliban as a de facto and de jure government of Afghanistan.

Therefore, by explicitly using sanctions relief and wide ranging exemption as a diplomatic tool, the US is wooing the Taliban, which is significant for two reasons. First, the Taliban regime needs external help to legitimise itself. It needs financial help to survive politically, which it cannot get on a scale it needs without the US sanctions relief. Secondly, both Russia and China have not yet decided to recognise the Taliban because of the latter’s failure to crack down on transnational jihadi networks. That the US has nonetheless decided to co-opt the Taliban/Haqqani network shows how Washington is not only helping the regime to survive, but also using the same help as a tactical manoeuvre.

The US government supported think-tanks are already producing a narrative that supports this line of action. The United States Institute of Peace is at the centre of this new narrative, drawing people’s attention to “positive” steps the Taliban regime has taken vis-à-vis improving the financial situation of Afghanistan. The irony of the matter is that the USIP is now defending the same regime the US – and most of the EU – has been criticising ever since it took over in August 2021 for being too “exclusive” and too “rigid.” The Taliban regime has taken no steps to include Afghanistan’s various, non-Pashtun ethnic groups into its decision-making circles. As far as gender inclusivity is concerned, the Taliban have already confirmed that their Islamic Emirates will not offer secondary education to girls.

Also, the Taliban regime has not taken any steps to eliminate either the ISIS-K, the ETIM (terrorist organizations, banned in Russia) or other transnational jihadi networks. Although Taliban officials have been claiming that terrorism has reduced in Afghanistan, it is obvious to many observers that level of terrorism in Afghanistan during winters is always low. Even Taliban’s own insurgency against the US and Kabul would have slown down in winters every year, with “spring offensive” every year being the official start of fighting season. Given that the Taliban have not undertaken any meaningful operations against these groups, it is difficult to believe that these groups have died out on their own.

The US knows that the Taliban regime has not taken these steps. Even though it does not have the CIA on the ground in Afghanistan, it still has access to information via, for instance,  the Norwegian Refugee Council, which has an extensive network comprising thousands of field workers and is known to have kept a durable relationship with the Taliban over the years. The US policy is, therefore, not being shaped by mere goodwill; it is based on an active assessment of the situation and how best it could be used to Washington’s advantage vis-à-vis its global strategic competitors.

Therefore, the fact that the US has decided to extend support to the Taliban/Haqqani network means that the US no longer considers transnational terrorist networks based in Afghanistan as a threat to its interests. At the same time, Washington is quite unlikely to heed any objections that Russia or China may have with regards to allowing the Taliban to consolidate their rule without first eliminating transnational extremists.

Therefore, although the Biden administration only recently celebrated the killing of the head of the ISIS in Syria, it is obvious that Washington is following a very different anti-terrorism policy in Afghanistan insofar as it is now supporting a group it once considered the most brutal of the Taliban factions.

Quite obviously, the US motivation behind changing its policy is to prevent the Afghan Taliban from leaning too much towards Afghanistan’s neighbours – Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran – and instead lure them into its new strategic game.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The NEO has already raised the issue of the optimal positioning of the Central Asian countries in the field of power that is being shaped by the world’s leading players, who have in varying degrees been involved in the processes that have developed in recent years in the sub-region.

The change of power in Afghanistan, as well as the changing nature of the presence of the world’s leading power, the United States, in the country brought a major novelty to these processes. It should be stressed that a military withdrawal does not mean a complete loss of Washington’s leverage in Afghanistan. First, there must be some “secret protocols” to the public agreements with the Taliban. Second, US banks hold significant financial reserves created by the previous Afghan government, access to which is becoming increasingly urgent for the new Kabul authorities. Third, the US retains diplomatic leverage in the region, which was recently exercised by Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, during her trip to India, Pakistan and also Uzbekistan.

Therefore, the list of countries that create the “field of power” mentioned at the beginning undoubtedly includes the United States, along with China, Russia, India and Pakistan. Meanwhile, Iran bordering the sub-region, Turkey with its claim to be the center of the “Great Turan” (a project that is unlikely to go beyond the conceptual framework) and, judging by certain signs, the United Kingdom shouldn’t be counted out. Germany and Japan have every chance of joining the significant actors as well.

The optimum strategy for countries lacking their own agency (that is, virtually all Central Asian countries), which have found themselves in such a “field,” has always been to perform a balancing act, with slight preference given at times, for one reason or another, to one of the creators of the “field.” In the case of non-threatening misunderstandings between said creators, such a strategy (with some skill) can be very profitable. An example of its quite successful implementation is the behavior of countries in another critically important sub-region, i.e. Southeast Asia, which is constantly monitored by the NEO.

A directly opposite strategy is being pursued by some Eastern European limitrophe states, which, for the dubious pleasure of sticking their tongue out at their former overlord, are unconditionally choosing one side of the escalating political confrontation in Europe. A questionable strategy, to put it bluntly, and one fraught with serious consequences at that. Who knows what can happen in our highly volatile world? With NATO, for example.

But Central Asia is home to people of a much older culture who do not allow themselves this kind of nonsense. An example of their most recent behavior was the (video) conferences the presidents of the five Central Asian countries held with the leaders of one of the major actors (China) first and the other (India) two days later. Even though the relationship between the latter two countries is still, as they say, not really working out.

However, the author was surprised to read at the last moment that the meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was preceded, first, by a video conference with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and, second, that it (the meeting with Modi) was also held in an online format. Just a month earlier it was reported that the leaders of all the five Central Asian countries were scheduled to travel to India as guests of honor on the country’s main holiday, Republic Day, which is celebrated annually on January 26. The agreement to arrange this trip turned out to be the main outcome of the so-called Delhi Dialogue between the foreign ministers of all the six countries, which took place on December 18-19, 2021, in an offline (let’s stress it) format.

The author believes that at a later point some of the Central Asian participants in the upcoming summit may have realized that the planned summit in New Delhi would be regarded as an act of disrespect or even a challenge by their crucial neighbor, China – something the Central Asian Five do not need at all, neither as a group nor individually.

It was the good old COVID-19, whose contagion curve in India has skyrocketed for the third time since the end of December, that helped to break the ambiguity. A perfect excuse for Central Asians to a) not go to New Delhi; b) use the one-month pause to arrange a similar event with Beijing; c) hold them all in the same online format; d) keep the “right” hierarchy in the order of the two events.

However, New Delhi is hardly upset, since there is nothing offensive about Beijing’s current immeasurably greater all-round presence in the Central Asian sub-region. For instance, China’s trade volume with Central Asian countries alone is an order of magnitude higher than that of India. In addition, the task of improving India’s relations with China is becoming increasingly urgent. The need to reduce turbulence across the whole of Central Asia, which is only possible by aligning the efforts of all leading actors, provides an excellent opportunity If the practical follow-up is in line with what was said at both summits, things could turn out very positively for the Central Asian partners of Beijing and New Delhi.

That is truly some mastery many independent Eastern European limitrophes could learn from. While they still have the time, that is – as the poor example of Lithuania has shown, which in its zealous – and not particularly smart – affection for Taiwan clearly overdid it.

A good excuse for Central Asian countries to hold summits with each of the two Asian giants was the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations with both of them. In his speech, the Chinese leader developed the main points of China’s policy towards Central Asia, which he had already announced three weeks earlier in a spoken address to Kazakhstan’s President Tokayev in connection with the notorious events of early January. This time they were presented in the form of five theses, most notably, once again, the fierce opposition expressed by Xi Jinping towards attempts by external forces to provoke “color revolutions” in the region and interfere in internal affairs under the pretext of “protecting human rights.” In addition, the promise from the previous “address” to provide “feasible assistance” in the areas of health and training in various fields of activity of Central Asian countries has taken concrete shape.

The editorial of the Chinese Global Times also drew attention to a number of points. In particular, the US strategy of containing China and Russia “simultaneously” in the sub-region, and the refusal to invite them both and all five Central Asian countries to the just-ended Forum for Democracy.

Again, just two days later (and this is highlighted in the Indian media), a similar event was held in the same format with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the leaders of the five Central Asian countries. From what can be understood, the Indian side has focused its interlocutors’ attention just on the problem of dramatically increasing trade and economic relations, an area in which it still lags far behind China.

As for Russia’s role in the Indo-Pacific region as a whole (and in its individual sub-regions), it is seen as a kind of political damper designed to reduce problems between all the countries in the region, but primarily between the leading countries, which in addition to China and India also include Japan.

The years-long process of chewing Euro-Atlantic “cud” (in which the “Ukrainian” part has an absolutely unjustified place) should also be stopped and from now on, all the attention should be focused on the region, where the fate of humanity will be decided.

Vladimir Terekhov, expert on the issues of the Asia-Pacific region, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Ever since the Taliban (an organization deemed terrorist and banned in Russia) took control of Afghanistan last August amid a shameful and chaotic US withdrawal, the country, ravaged by war and occupation for 20 years, has plunged deeper and deeper into disaster, causing new waves of displacement, further impoverishing it and raising the specter of mass starvation.

Deprived of billions in aid, credit and assets from an international community unwilling to recognize the new government in Kabul, Afghanistan is fast becoming the worst and most difficult humanitarian situation in the world. Afghans who are unable or unwilling to join the stream of refugees are forced to survive the harshest winter in recent memory, suffering hardship due to the United States, which has occupied the country for 20 years but has failed to establish a capable government. There is a drastic shortage of basic food, fuel and medicines. But even the 5.7 million Afghans who have fled to five neighboring countries (Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) are still in need of vital assistance. The suffering of the people was further compounded when at least 22 people died and hundreds of buildings were damaged after two earthquakes struck the isolated western province of Badghis on January 17.

In response to the deteriorating situation from all angles, the UN was forced on January 11 to launch a $5 billion appeal to help Afghans survive the very cold winter. But it must be said that many members of the international community have been reluctant to send aid to Afghanistan, fearing it might empower the Taliban, whose extreme interpretation of Islam, according to Western media, deprives girls of education, prohibits women from working in the workplace and restricts freedom of expression.

When the Taliban toppled the US-backed government of Ashraf Ghani last summer, they lost access to financial reserves under full US control of the World Bank and IMF, their assets were frozen and development assistance was suddenly suspended. In addition, President Joe Biden’s administration has frozen $7 billion of Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves held in New York. It is only natural that these enormous funds are not lying dormant, but are actively working, bringing in considerable dividends for the US bankers.

Despite 20 years of aggression and total Western interference in Afghan affairs, successive governments have failed to diversify the economy beyond rudimentary agriculture. In fact, almost 80% of the previous government’s budget came from Washington, which provided some of the dividends it profited from the illegal sale of Afghan drugs, as well as from other foreign donors whose troops were illegally on Afghan territory.  Deprived of this aid, the country’s weak and poorly coordinated economy now teeters on the brink of total collapse. Politicians and economists around the world remain perplexed: how to deal with an extremely dangerous situation unfolding without giving the Taliban “oxygen of legitimacy”. Washington thus seeks to bypass the Taliban by directly channeling funds through UN agencies and to those people who are still actively cooperating with the former US aggressors.

On January 11, the United States Agency for International Development announced more than $308 million in additional aid, bringing total US humanitarian spending on Afghanistan and Afghan refugees in the region since October 2020 to a paltry almost $782 million. Financiers warn that increased aid contributions are not a sustainable solution and that Afghans will only achieve lasting security and financial independence when they regain access to their bank accounts and hard currency, illegally held mostly in US banks.

Masuda Sultan, an Afghan women’s rights activist and co-founder of the human rights group Unfreeze Afghanistan, set up in September 2021 to lobby politicians on behalf of ordinary Afghans deprived of their savings under the sanctions regime, acknowledges that some progress has been made: “The UN announced its largest humanitarian funding appeal in its history, and last week the US announced $308 million in additional humanitarian aid on top of the $474 already committed.” In an interview with Saudi Arab News, she said: “But without addressing the underlying economic freeze related to the banking sector, which is a result of sanctions, the needs of the Afghan people can never be met.” In fact, the number of people needing emergency humanitarian assistance will just grow.

Aware of the growing pressure on Washington to release Afghanistan’s frozen assets, Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government’s spokesman, recently posted a message on Twitter saying: “The United States must respond positively to the international voice and release Afghan capital.” Cheryl Benard, one of the co-founders of Unfreeze in Afghanistan and president of ARCH International, a Washington-based organization dedicated to preserving cultural heritage in conflict zones, said giving Afghans access to their legal savings would prevent a collapse of the currency and allow them to develop their communities themselves. “The bottom line is this is a post-conflict country,” Benard told Arab News. “In Germany (after the Second World War), we had the Marshall Plan and it helped them become a normal country again and rebuild their livelihoods.” It should be recalled, however, that the Marshall Plan was primarily designed to promote American interests, and it is thanks to it that US troops are still in Europe, while Soviet troops were withdrawn.

In the case of Afghanistan, the Afghans have the money themselves, $9 billion, and Washington is holding it back and instead the UN is raising new donor funds. But this was exactly what ruined the Afghan experiment for the past 20 years: The US kept them dependent on foreign experts and foreign funding. What they need now is to stand on their own feet and use their own funds, and the Afghans want to do that. Under the harsh and illegal sanctions regime imposed on Afghanistan, individuals, NGOs and small business owners cannot access savings held in foreign banks because the US fears the Taliban may try to use the money for their own purposes. In other words, President Joe Biden’s administration is preventing in every way possible (but for how long?) the Taliban from using this money to develop the economy and to alleviate the suffering of Afghans. In Washington, the current businessmen with a sick mind believe that the worse it is for the Afghans, the better it is for the US.

Benard said the transition of money into Taliban hands could be prevented by releasing the money “in small monthly amounts and if they try to take it, you can always freeze it again. You don’t give them $9 billion all at once.” The money could go directly to the Afghan central bank, where it would be regulated by law, before it is distributed to Afghan savers through currency exchanges across the country. “This is totally normal,” said Benard. “What is not normal is for the US to say, ‘We don’t like the outcome of the war, so we are freezing your money.’” It is hard to call this approach to freezing and illicitly using Afghan funds in US banks anything other than revanchist.

Shakib Noori, US-based director of sustainable development at AMS, told the best solution for Afghanistan is to ensure aid remains “apolitical and not a carrot-or-stick tool of the Western world to coerce the Taliban.” However, he said it is also important “to ensure that the current regime in Kabul does not benefit from the flow of the humanitarian assistance designated specifically for the ordinary residents of Afghanistan.”

Aid agencies said banking is not the only sector in need of support to stave off economic collapse. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, a crucial way to support the Afghan people is to shore up agriculture, which forms the backbone of the nation’s economy and its food security.  “Afghanistan is now one of the world’s largest and most severe hunger crises,” Rein Paulsen, director of the FAO’s Office of Emergencies and Resilience, told Arab News.

Half the population — 22.8 million people — are confronting acute hunger and food insecurity at the moment. Not only do they not know where their next meal might come from, but whether to stay in their homes or walk away from their livelihood in search of aid elsewhere. “Unless we tackle the causes that underlie this crisis, we can expect things to continue to get worse,” says Rein Paulsen. “This crisis is the result of a combination of factors but one key factor involves the underlying vulnerabilities that affect what is the bedrock of Afghanistan’s economy and food security: agriculture.”  Agriculture accounts for 25% of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product, 70% of Afghans directly rely on domestic agricultural production for their food or income, and 80 percent receive some sort of economic benefit from the sector. The largest share of the country’s population, 17.8 million, lives in rural areas and depends mainly on agriculture.

Politicians, economists and bankers are summing up the bleak situation in a disappointing way: “Afghanistan is falling off a cliff”, with the economic shock of losing 45 percent of GDP overnight. If the banking sector collapses, a further 30% of GDP could be lost and then there would be the question of defaulting on the state system. The US and NATO countries responsible for Afghanistan’s precarious state will have to “work with current Afghan authorities, despite the fraught history and long war.” It remains to be seen whether they want to prevent further Afghan suffering or add to old hardships.

However, the facts clearly show that no historical and economic parallels have taught neither the past nor the present rulers of the United States anything.

Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of RANS, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Central Asia (CA), due to its geostrategic location at the junction of Europe and Asia, its proximity to the leading international actors such as Russia and China, its wealth of natural resources and its yet-to-be fully exploited trade and economic opportunities, has recently attracted increasing interest from international actors.

In order to create a stable position in the region and break the traditional long-standing ties of the Central Asian countries with Russia and China, the US and its NATO allies prefer to use a policy of provocation and increased activity of Western intelligence services. In particular, they apply soft power or initiate attacks there by specially trained radical militants (as happened, in particular, in the recent January events in Kazakhstan), and incite ethnic conflicts, such as the latest aggravation on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border.

Russia, China and, more recently, India have been acting in a very different way in Central Asia: they have been seeking to strengthen cultural, trade, economic and political cooperation, based above all on their shared responsibility for the security and harmonious development of the region, to which these three states are most closely linked.

For Beijing, the Central Asian region is especially important, above all to prevent Islamic fundamentalism from penetrating into these countries, which could then spill over to the PRC. It is also important for Beijing to create a reliable infrastructure in Central Asia for the delivery of Chinese goods abroad, and to ensure China’s energy security – it is in Central Asia that Beijing buys large quantities of gas, oil and uranium. China’s trade with the five Central Asian countries reached $40bn back in 2018. On January 25, Chinese President Xi Jinping chaired an online meeting with Central Asian leaders to mark the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the CA countries and China, and vowed to import more of their agricultural products and other high-quality goods, raise bilateral trade with the region to $70bn by 2030, provide $500m in aid, 50m doses of vaccines and 1,200 scholarships for students. The Chinese leader also pointed to several joint projects of strategic importance: the China-Central Asia gas pipeline, the China-Kazakhstan oil pipeline, the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan highway and the China-Tajikistan road.

Following Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also held an online summit on January 27 to mark the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations with CA countries, also celebrated in India. Its results, as well as the importance of developing and deepening relations with the Central Asian countries for New Delhi, have been widely reported in the Indian media. In particular, it was noted that New Delhi has established special ties with some Central Asian countries over the past few years. For example, Kazakhstani troops are part of the Indian UN peacekeeping battalion in Lebanon. In Kyrgyzstan, India has built five telemedicine centers, provided $200m in loans, conducts the annual Khanjar military exercise and has a student community of 15,000. With Tajikistan, New Delhi cooperates closely in the defense sector. India has lent $1bn to Uzbekistan, approved four projects worth $450m and is investing $50m in setting up a pharmaceutical plant. In Turkmenistan, India has constructed an IT center. Before that, India had signed a defense and military technology agreement with Kazakhstan, set up a joint counter-terrorism team with Uzbekistan and concluded military cooperation agreements with Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. By developing defense cooperation with the region, India is clearly aiming to become an arms supplier to this part of the world, with the expectation that by using Russian arms, CA countries will buy spare parts and components for them, which India produces domestically.

The summit was focused on proposals on how to increase trade, business ties, cultural cooperation and, of course, counter the terrorism threat, which has intensified since the US had withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan. Narendra Modi stressed that these events showed the need for greater interaction. The Indian media recalled that the head of the Indian government had visited all the republics in the region back in 2015. And in December 2021, a foreign minister-level dialogue between the five countries and India was held, focusing on Afghanistan, the pandemic and mutual relations.

New Delhi is positioning itself as an important player in Afghanistan and Central Asia, counting on access to energy resources in accordance with its declaration made 30 years ago. New Delhi had hoped to activate a transport corridor through Chabahar Port in Iran and onward through Afghanistan. However, in 2019, India took the US side in the Iran-US controversy by acceding to US sanctions, with Iran taking a painful view, and some plans, including those for Chabahar Port, were frozen.

Like China, India quite reasonably does not want the Central Asian region to become a haven for Islamic radicals. It also feared the formation of a bloc of Muslim countries in Central Asia – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey – which New Delhi was convinced would have an anti-India bias. It therefore began to act decisively, tried to get a military airbase in Tajikistan and sent its military advisers to Afghanistan.

According to official reports from New Delhi, an important outcome of the online summit initiated by Modi on January 27 was an agreement by leaders of India and Central Asian countries to hold summits every two years, making Central Asia the culmination of New Delhi’s continuous diplomatic engagement with all countries of the region in recent years, according to the Indian Foreign Ministry. The summit welcomed India’s proposal to set up an India-Central Asia hub in New Delhi intended to function as a secretariat for summit meetings, according to the Delhi Declaration adopted at the end of the summit. In addition, the parties at the summit noted the relevance of the idea of creating an India-Central Asia parliamentary forum.

The online summit supported India’s proposal to include the Iranian Chabahar Port in the structure of the North-South international transport corridor, with Turkmenistan’s initiative to include Turkmenbashi Port as well. In addition, the Indian side welcomed the interest of Central Asian leaders to use the Shahid Beheshti terminal of Chabahar Port on the Gulf of Oman, which is being built with the active participation of Indian investors in order to facilitate trade with India and other external markets. In particular, with the Gulf states shipping goods to Western and Northern Europe via the territories of Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia, including by connecting the railways of the three countries, this would reduce, as a result of using this corridor, freight delivery times by a factor of two or three.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.