U.N. has millions in Afghanistan bank, but cannot use it

FILE PHOTO: Afghans walk past a Humvee with a Taliban fighter on it guarding the road in Kabul, Afghanistan, January 27, 2022. REUTERS/Ali Khara

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations has about $135 million in the bank in Afghanistan but is unable to use it because the Taliban-run central bank cannot convert it to the afghani currency, a senior U.N. official said on Thursday.

Abdallah al Dardari, head of the U.N. Development Programme in Afghanistan, said the United Nations had taken the U.S. dollars into the country and deposited it with the Afghanistan International Bank "with a clear promise from the central bank that fresh cash will be automatically converted to afghanis."