US must ‘pay the bill’ for Afghanistan – Russia — Analysis
Washington should not deflect responsibility for its own mistakes, Moscow’s top UN diplomat says
The US should focus on compensating the Afghan people for the 20 years of “pointless occupation” rather than accusing others of not chipping in, Russia’s envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, has said.
As part of their global War on Terror, which was declared following the terrorist attacks on America, the US sent troops to Afghanistan in 2001. However, Taliban took Kabul and invaded Afghanistan during the US’s final phase of withdrawal.
At a UN Security Council meeting in New York on Monday, US envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield suggested that Russia was not doing enough to help Afghanistan’s economy.
“Russia argued, as others have in the past, that Afghanistan’s problems are the fault of ‘the West,’ and not the Taliban. Really?” Thomas-Greenfield said.
“Here is my question: What are you doing to help other than rehash the past and criticize others? If you are concerned that Afghan women and children are dying, how are you helping them?”
Further, the US ambassador stated that Russia had contributed “nothing” to the UN Afghanistan Humanitarian Response Plan this year, and called China’s contributions “similarly underwhelming.”
Nebenzia retorted against Thomas-Greenfield by arguing Washington should shoulder the responsibility, considering the almost two decades-long US presence in war-torn Afghanistan.
“The cynicism of such statements is simply shocking: We are being asked to pull out our wallet to rebuild the country whose economy was virtually destroyed by the 20 years of occupation by the US and NATO,” Nebenzia said.
“Instead of admitting one’s mistakes and trying to fix them, we are now being chastised for not wanting to pay for the bills of others. It’s an unusual proposition.”
“No, dear former Western partners, it is you who must pay for your mistakes,”He concluded.
We have helped and will continue to help Afghanistan, and we recommend that you focus on compensating… the Afghans for the 20 years of senseless occupation that destroyed Afghanistan and [threatened the survival of its people]
Thomas-Greenfield replied: “Let me just state that if the Russian Federation believes that there was an economy in Afghanistan to be destroyed, it’s been destroyed by the Taliban.”
Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun said, “What a disaster the past twenty years have been [in Afghanistan] has once again proved that military interventionAnd power politics are not the right way,” and “the tragedy in Afghanistan should never be allowed to repeat.”
UN warned Afghanistan that current levels of aid are not sufficient.
“You can’t use humanitarian relief to patch up what has been a completely collapsed economy,”Kanni Wignaraja was the Assistant Secretary General and Regional Director for Asia-Pacific of United Nations Development Program. She spoke this month.
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