By David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Treasury Department is taking steps to prevent the Taliban from accessing some $455 million worth of new International Monetary Fund reserves due to be allocated to Afghanistan next week, a Treasury official said on Wednesday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not provide details on the specific actions being taken by the Treasury, which follow a letter from Republican lawmakers urging U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to “intervene” at the IMF to ensure that no IMF Special Drawing Rights are made available to the Taliban.

The IMF on Monday is due to complete a $650 billion allocation of SDRs — the fund’s unit of exchange based on dollars, euros, yen, sterling and yuan — to its 190 member countries in proportion to their shareholding in the Fund.

The increase in reserves is aimed at bolstering the balance sheets of poorer countries that have been severely strained by the coronavirus pandemic. Afghanistan, based on its 0.07% quota shareholding, stands to receive about $455 million.

The Taliban gaining access to those assets would be hard to digest in capitals around the globe, but not all countries have access to the SDRs they are allocated.

In 2019, the IMF suspended Venezuela’s SDR access after more than 50 member countries representing a majority of the Fund’s shareholding refused to recognize Nicolas Maduro’s government.

It was unclear on Wednesday how many IMF member countries are declining to recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government.

Afghan and U.S. officials have said most of the Afghan central bank’s nearly $10 billion in assets are held outside Afghanistan, likely putting them beyond the insurgents’ reach. A Biden administration official previously said that any Afghan central bank assets held in the United States will not be made available to the Taliban.

(Reporting by David Lawder and Tim Ahmann)