Ghani rejects Taliban prisoner release under US agreement

KABUL: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani rejected on Sunday a Taliban demand for the release of 5,000 prisoners as a condition for talks with Afghanistan’s government and civilians, included in a deal between the United States and the militants.

“The government of Afghanistan has made no commitment to free 5,000 Taliban prisoners,” Ghani told reporters in Kabul, a day after the deal was signed in a Gulf state to start a political settlement aimed at ending the United States’ longest war.

US negotiators face difficulties in shepherding the Afghan government and Taliban toward intra-afghan negotiations, according to Western diplomats.

Under the accord, the United States and the Taliban are committed to work expeditiously to release combat and political prisoners as a confidence-building measure, with the coordination and approval of all relevant sides. The agreement calls for up to 5,000 jailed Taliban prisoners to be released in exchange for up to 1,000 Afghan government captives by March 10.

On the issue of the prisoner swap, Ghani said, “It is not in the authority of United States to decide, they are only a facilitator.” Ghani told CNN on Sunday that US President Donald Trump had not asked for the release of the prisoners and that the issue of prisoner releases should be discussed as part of a comprehensive peace deal.

“The political consensus... that would be needed for such a major step does not exist today,” Ghani said.

Ghani said key issues need to be discussed first including the Taliban’s ties with Pakistan and other countries that had offered it sanctuary, its ties with what he called terrorist groups and drug cartels, and the place of Afghan security forces and its civil administration.

“The people of Afghanistan need to believe that we’ve gone from war to peace, and not that the agreement will be either a Trojan horse or the beginning of a much worse phase of conflict,” Ghani added.

Ghani said verifiable mechanisms were needed to ensure commitments made were actually delivered.

Saturday’s accord was signed by US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban political chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, witnessed by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

After the ceremony, Baradar met foreign ministers from Norway, Turkey and Uzbekistan in Doha along with diplomats from Russia, Indonesia and neighbouring nations, the Taliban said, a move that signalled the group’s determination to secure international legitimacy.

“The dignitaries who met Mullah Baradar expressed their commitments towards Afghanistan’s reconstruction and development... the Us-taliban agreement is historical,” said Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid.

Trump rejected criticism around the deal and said he would meet Taliban leaders in the near future.

Ghani’s aides said Trump’s decision to meet the Taliban could pose a challenge to Afghanistan’s government at a time when the US troop withdrawal becomes imminent.

Iran on Sunday dismissed the agreement as a pretext to legitimise the presence of US troops in Afghanistan.

“The United States has no legal standing to sign a peace agreement or to determine the future of Afghanistan,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement reported by state media.

Under the agreement, Washington is committed to reducing the number of its troops in Afghanistan to 8,600 from 13,000 within 135 days of signing. The United States also is committed under the accord to work with allies to proportionally reduce the number of coalition forces in Afghanistan over that period, if the Taliban forces adhere to their security guarantees and ceasefire.

A full withdrawal of all US and coalition forces would occur within 14 months, the joint statement said.

The withdrawal depends on security guarantees by the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and imposed many restrictions on women and activities it deemed “un-islamic.” As US troops prepare to leave Afghanistan, opening the door for a potential Taliban comeback, women across the war-torn country are nervous about losing their hard-won freedoms in the pursuit of peace.

The militants were in power for around five years until the US invasion of 2001. They ruled Afghanistan with an iron fist that turned women into virtual prisoners under a strict interpretation of sharia law.

The Taliban’s fall transformed women’s lives, much more so in urban areas like Kabul than in conservative rural Afghanistan.

But across the country, women remain wary of the insurgents, desperate to see an end to the violence, but fearful of paying a heavy price.

After being ousted from power in 2001 in a Us-led invasion following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States engineered by Al Qaeda forces harboured by the Taliban, the Taliban have led a violent insurgency.