Daily Times

The Afghan government will complete a Taliban prisoner release to pave the way for peace talks to end nearly two decades of war, the country’s president said.

During an online discussion with the Washington-based Atlantic Council, President Ashraf Ghani said around 3,000 Taliban prisoners have already been released and the remainder will be released before the talks.

A peace deal signed by the US and the Taliban in February calls for up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners and 1,000 government prisoners to be set free.

“My colleagues and I have made the decision to release an additional 2,000 prisoners within a short period,” Ghani said. “Next week we should be able to inform the world of the next step.”

A US-Taliban agreement signed in February in Qatar’s capital, Doha, stipulated that the Afghan government would release up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners while the Taliban would free about 1,000 Afghan security forces personnel.

The prisoner swap was mentioned in the agreement as a “confidence-building measure” before long-awaited peace talks between the government and Taliban.

Before Sunday’s announcement, Kabul had already released about 1,000 Taliban inmates while the Taliban had freed roughly 300 members of the Afghan security forces, according to reports.

The Taliban said they were committed to freeing prisoners, but reminded Kabul that the agreement was to “release 5,000” of their members as agreed with the US in Doha.