Afghanistan to release more Taliban prisoners

KABUL — Afghanistan is to release more Taliban prisoners in the hope of getting peace talks going, a government spokesman said on Thursday, after the insurgent group provided the government with a revised list of several hundred of their detainees.

Disagreement over about 600 prisoners from a total of 5,000 the Taliban want released has prevented the launch of U.S.-brokered peace talks aimed at ending nearly 19 years of war since the Islamist militants were ousted.

While releases by both sides have taken place, the Afghan government has said it does not want to release some prisoners for security reasons and its Western allies also object to some of them being set free.

The Taliban could not be reached for comment and it was not clear if they would be willing to start talks based on the release of the prisoners on the list.