Exclusive: Audit fails to win U.S. backing for release of Afghan central bank funds - U.S. officials

WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD, July 21 (Reuters) - A U.S.-funded audit of Afghanistan's Taliban-run central bank has failed to win Washington's backing for a return of bank assets from a $3.5 billion Swiss-based trust fund, said two U.S. officials and a former U.S. official, a move that would help ease the country's financial crisis.

The audit has not changed the U.S. Treasury's view that the bank must make reforms before the department will support disbursements from the Afghan Fund to Da Afghanistan Bank, or DAB, as the central bank is known, said a U.S. Treasury official on condition of anonymity.

The Swiss-based Afghan Fund was set up last year with half of about $7 billion in central bank funds that were frozen in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in August 2021 after the Taliban took control of the country as the last foreign forces withdrew following two decades of war.

DAB must show that it is free "from political influence and interference," said the Treasury official, referring to the need for professional bankers to replace the three Taliban officials who oversee the bank and are under U.S. and U.N. sanctions...
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