Afghan council agrees to free members of Taliban
ATRADITIONAL Afghan council has concluded with hundreds of delegates agreeing to free 400 Taliban members, paving the way for an early start to negotiations between Afghanistan’s warring sides.
The declaration read out in both of Afghanistan’s official languages, Pashto and Farsi, calls for an immediate start to negotiations as well as an immediate ceasefire.
The move looks to bring the United States a little closer to bringing its troops home and end its longest military engagement.
No date has been set but negotiations between Kabul’s political leadership and the Taliban are expected to begin as early as next week and will most likely be held in the Middle Eastern state of Qatar, where the Taliban maintains a political office.
The Afghan negotiations were laid out in a peace deal signed by the United States and the Taliban in February.
At the time of its signing, it was touted as Afghanistan’s best chance at ending decades of war.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani praised delegates for their decision and urged the Taliban to stop fighting.
Taliban political spokesman Suhail Shaheen said the decision “was a good step, a positive step”.
He said negotiations could start within one week of its prisoners being freed.
As for a ceasefire, Shaheen said the Taliban was committed to the deal it struck with the United States and according to that deal “the ceasefire will be one of the items to be discussed during the intra-Afghan negotiations”.
On Sunday afternoon, an explosive devise hidden in a cart killed two people in Kabul. The spokesman for the capital’s police, Firdus Faramarz, said policemen were trying to remove the device when it exploded. Five police officers were injured.
The council’s decision to free the prisoners does not come as a surprise, as delegates were urged by the US at the start of the council, or jirga, on Friday to take “this difficult action” so negotiations could begin to bring an end to the war.
“To remove obstacle, to start peace talks and to stop the bloodshed, the jirga confirms the release of 400 Taliban
prisoners,” said Atefa Tayeb, a council secretary who read out the final declaration at the conclusion.
The deal negotiated between the United States and Taliban called for the government to free 5,000 prisoners and for the Taliban to free 1,000 government and military personnel in its custody as a goodwill gesture ahead of the start of negotiations.
Kabul baulked at the release but eventually freed all but the last 400.
President Ashraf Ghani said he was not authorised to free them because of the seriousness of their crimes, and asked for the council to decide instead. He did not detail what the 400 were accused of.
Delegates were therefore given the stark choice of either freeing the prisoners or seeing a war that has killed tens of thousands continue.
The delegates said they wanted international guarantees that the Taliban would not return to the battlefield.
Washington’s peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad spent more than a yearand-a-half negotiating the deal with the Taliban to provide for the withdrawal of American soldiers after more than 19 years in Afghanistan.
The withdrawal began earlier this year but roughly 8,600 US soldiers remain in Afghanistan.