Russian Envoy: Afghan Trade Minister to Discuss Russian Oil, Grain Supplies on August 15 in Moscow

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Acting Afghan Minister of Industry and Trade Nuriddin Azizi, who had been appointed by the Taliban*, will arrive in Moscow for negotiations on August 15 to discuss deliveries of Russian oil and food products, Russian Ambassador to Afghanistan Dmitry Zhirnov told Sputnik.

"Negotiations with the Afghan minister of industry and trade will be held in Moscow on August 15. The delegation also includes economists and financiers. The Afghans are planning to procure oil, other energy sources, wheat, flour, sunflower oil," Zhirnov said.

He added that the delegation is also planning to visit the Russian city of Kazan.

"Such contacts are necessary for the development of interregional ties," the ambassador said.

First Deputy to the Board of Directors of Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Investment (ACCI) Muhammad Younus Muhmand told Sputnik on June 15 on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) that Afghanistan was planning to buy 2 million tonnes of wheat and 5,000 tonnes of oil from Russia, adding that negotiations on the supply of glass, timber, and duty-free bilateral trade also were underway.

The talks would come against the background of a dire humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, which is exacerbated by the United States' freeze on the assets of the Afghan Central Bank. Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, Washington froze $7 billion in Afghan assets that were held in the US. The Joe Biden administration has ignored the calls from Kabul and the international community to release the frozen assets to alleviate the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan. As a result, more than half of Afghanistan's population - 22.8 million people - is on the brink of acute famine.

According to the United Nations, up to 97 percent of the population may plunge below the poverty line this year, while 1.1 million children under the age of five will face the most severe form of malnutrition in 2022.

Just days before the anniversary of the Taliban takeover, over 70 prominent US and international economists penned a letter to Biden and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, urging them to hand over the $7 billion in Central Bank reserves to Afghanistan.

"We are deeply concerned by the compounding economic and humanitarian catastrophes unfolding in Afghanistan, and, in particular, by the role of US policy in driving them. Without access to its foreign reserves, the central bank of Afghanistan cannot carry out its normal, essential functions. Without a functioning central bank, the economy of Afghanistan has, predictably, collapsed," they wrote.

Nobel economics prize winner Joseph Stiglitz and Yanis Varoufakis, ex-Greek minister of finance, who served his term when Athens was negotiating with creditors after the 2008 economic collapse, are among the 71 signatories.

"Seventy percent of Afghan households are unable to meet their basic needs. Some 22.8 million people -- over half the population -- face acute food insecurity, and three million children are at risk of malnutrition. These reserves were critical to the functioning of the Afghan economy, in particular, to manage money supply, to stabilize the currency and to pay for the imports -- chiefly food and oil -- on which Afghanistan relies," they continued.

"By all rights, the full $7 billion belong to the Afghan people. Returning anything less than the full amount undermines the recovery of a devastated economy."

*The Taliban is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities.