Afghanistan to free 400 Talibs in peace move
In this handout photograph taken on Sunday and released by the Press Office of President of Afghanistan, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during the last day of the Loya Jirga, a grand assembly, in Kabul.
A traditional Afghan council concluded on Sunday with hundreds of delegates agreeing to free 400 Taliban members, paving the way for an early start to fresh negotiations between Afghanistan’s warring sides.
The declaration read out in both of Afghanistan’s official languages of Pashto and Dari calls for an immediate start to negotiations and a ceasefire. The move looks to bring the United States a little closer to ending 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 has a political office.
The Afghan negotiations were laid out in a peace deal signed by the United States and the Taliban in February. Its signing 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 their prisoners being freed.
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.”
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 the 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.
The deal negotiated between the United States and the Taliban calls 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 balked at the release but eventually freed all but the last 400. President Ghani said he was not authorized to free these because of the seriousness of their crimes, and asked for the Jirga to decide instead. He did not detail what the 400 were accused of.
Delegates were 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 year and a half negotiating the deal with the Taliban to provide for the withdrawal of American soldiers after 19 years in Afghanistan.
The withdrawal began this year but roughly 8,600 US soldiers remain in Afghanistan and their return will depend on the Taliban honoring its commitment to fight against other terrorist groups and ensure Afghanistan is not again used to attack the United States or its allies.
The withdrawal of US and NATO troops is not dependent on the success of negotiations between Kabul and the Taliban.
