April 13, 2020
Zalmay Khalilzad, US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, in a tweet, welcomed the prisoners’ swap between the Afghan government and Taliban.
He stated that both sides ought to speed-up efforts to meet targets of US-Taliban agreement, because potential for COVID-19 outbreaks in prisons could be lethal.
The Afghan government has so far released 361 Taliban prisoners from Bagram prison, says Javid Faisal – spokesman for the Office of the National Security Council, Afghanistan. As per President Ghani’s decree, “releases will continue across other prisons to free a total of 1,500 as part of our efforts to advance peace and fight COVID-19”, he added.
On the other hand, in an encouraging move, the Taliban also released 20 government prisoners on April 12, 2020, the group informed via tweet. The Taliban also shared photos of the released prisoners and said they were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Kandahar province.
Juan-Pedro Schaerer, ICRC Head in Afghanistan confirmed the release afterwards. “Today we facilitated the release of 20 Afghan National Defense and Security Forces who were detained by the Taliban and transferred them to the Governor’s Office in Kandahar,” he tweeted.
This development precipitated as the third group of 100 Taliban prisoners was released by the Afghan government.
As per the US-Taliban peace agreement, 5,000 prisoners of the group would be released by the Afghan government, and 1,000 prisoners ought to be released by the Taliban, to pave the way for intra-Afghan negotiations.
Earlier in the week, the Taliban just snapped off ongoing talks with the Kabul government over a prisoner exchange. Suhail Shaheen – spokesman for the Taliban’s political office in Qatar, tweeted that their technical team would not participate in meetings anymore and is called back, terming the meetings inconclusive. Suhail was of the view that Afghan government is using delaying tactics only.
However, a spokesman for the government said it would maintain its work on the prisoner release plan. “We ask the Taliban to not sabotage the process by making excuses now,” said Javid Faisal.
© Afghan Studies Center (ASC), Islamabad.
