KABUL – Afghanistan voted on Sunday to release 400 Taliban prisoners, hoping to end peace talks between the government and the Taliban, following a peace agreement the insurgents signed with the US earlier this year.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said he would sign the decision after a meeting of the Council of Elders, known as Loya Jirga, approved the Taliban’s demand to release the 400 prisoners “to prevent obstruction, to begin peace talks” , stop bloodshed and for the goodwill of the people. “
Ghani had convened a rally in the capital, Kabul, where some 3,200 Afghan city leaders and politicians were gathering in the middle of punitive security measures to advise the government on whether to release the prisoners.
“You have paved the way for our nation today,” Ghani said, addressing the meeting in a speech broadcast live on national television.
He added: “We have no other way but peace.”
Three Taliban leaders told NBC News that they are awaiting the release of their detainees before making plans on how to proceed. However, they said they would not immediately declare a ceasefire.
Taliban militants have insisted on the release of detainees as a condition for entering into peace talks with the Afghan government.
On Friday, Ghani told the assembly that the Taliban had demanded the release of the remaining 400 prisoners for the peace talks to begin, but it was “beyond the authority of the President of Afghanistan” because they were convicted of serious crimes.
If the prisoners are not released, he said, the Taliban threaten to increase its violent activity.
U.S. peacekeeper Zalmay Khalilzad tweeted Friday the meeting was “a historic opportunity” to remove the last obstacle to peace talks.
“A positive outcome will mean a reduction in violence and Afghans will immediately come together at the negotiating table,” he added.
“We recognize that the release of these prisoners is not popular,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the meeting in a statement released Thursday. “But this difficult action will lead to an important result long sought by Afghans and the friends of Afghanistan: reduction of violence and direct talks will result in a peace agreement and an end to the war.”
The head of the Loya Jirga, Abdullah Abdullah, told reporters on Saturday that he expected the peace talks to resume within three days of the decision to release the Taliban prisoners.
Later last month, the Ghani government reiterated that the long-awaited direct negotiations would begin in a week.
At present, the Taliban have not officially confirmed that they are in talks with the government. The militants have consistently refused to negotiate directly with or recognize the government in Kabul, referring to Ghani as an American puppet.
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The embedded peace process in Afghanistan has so far seen months of limited, if any, progress.
In February, the US and the Taliban agreed in a landmark deal that US troops would withdraw from Afghanistan in exchange for Taliban security guarantees.
But the start of peace talks, originally scheduled to begin on March 10, has been delayed.
Many of the delays were due to Kabul’s unwillingness to release some Taliban prisoners identified for release as part of the agreement. The Afghan government was not a party to the deal with the US Taliban.
Currently, the US is committed to working with both sides to secure the release of up to 5,000 prisoners held by the Afghan government and 1,000 prisoners held by the Taliban.
Kabul balked at the release, but eventually released all but the last 400 prisoners.
The conflict in Afghanistan is America’s longest war and has claimed the lives of more than 2,000 American troops and injured thousands more. Between 2009 and last year, the United Nations recorded more than 100,000 civilian casualties with more than 35,000 killed and 65,000 wounded.
Ahmed Mengli reported from Kabul. Yuliya Talmazan from London. Reuters and the Associated Press have contributed to this report.
Mushtaq Yusufzai contributed.
