Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has agreed to release 400 Taliban detainees after a large Afghan assembly known as the Loya Jirga passed a resolution approving the movement.
The resolution advocating the release of the prisoners was adopted on Sunday at the end of a three-day Loya Jirga, a traditional Afghan gathering of tribal elders and other stakeholders held to decide on key issues.
“To remove the obstacles to the beginning of peace talks, to stop bloodshed, and for the good of the public, the jirga approves the release of 400 prisoners as demanded by the Taliban,” Jirga member Atefa Tayeb announced.
After the announcement, President Ghani said: “Today I will sign the release order for these 400 prisoners.”
The fate of the prisoners was a crucial obstacle in starting peace talks between the two sides. The Afghan government has released almost all Taliban prisoners on the list, but authorities have released them over the release of the final 400.
According to an official list seen by the AFP news agency, many of the residents are accused of serious crimes, with more than 150 of them on the death penalty.
The list also includes a group of 44 hunters who are of interest to the United States and other countries for their role in “high profile” attacks.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday pushed for the release of the prisoners, while acknowledging that the decision would be “unpopular”.
On Sunday, Loya Jirga officials said they wanted international guarantees that the Taliban would not return to the battlefield.
“The release of prisoners was the only obstacle that has now been removed. The agreement was that once the 5,000 Taliban members are released, the ceasefire will be discussed in the intra-Afghan talks,” said Mushtaq Rahim, a founder of Afghanistan. Business unity, an Afghan think tank, told Al Jazeera.
“We are all ready for the intra-Afghan talks to discuss future perspectives of the Afghan political setup, agreed on abandoning the violence and participating in the political progress.“
Intra-Afghan peace talks
No date has been set, but negotiations between Kabul’s political leadership and the Taliban are expected to begin next week and are likely to be held in Qatar, where the Taliban maintains a political office.
The Afghan negotiations were explained in a deal signed by the US and the Taliban in February. At the time of signing, it was cited as the best opportunity in Afghanistan at the end of decades of war.
The deal called on the government to release 5,000 prisoners and for the Taliban to release 1,000 government and military personnel in their custody as a gesture of goodwill before the start of negotiations.
Some 3,200 Afghan community leaders and politicians gather amid tight security in Kabul to advise the government on whether to release the prisoners [Andalou]
The Washington peacekeeping force, Zalmay Khalilzad, spent more than a year and a half negotiating the deal with the Taliban to secure the withdrawal of US troops after nearly 19 years in Afghanistan.
The withdrawal began earlier this year, but roughly 8,600 U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan, and their return will depend on the Taliban honoring their commitment to fight other armed groups and ensuring that Afghanistan is not used again around the US as to attack his allies.
In an interview aired on Saturday, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the US plans to reduce its troop levels in Afghanistan to “a number less than 5,000” by the end of November.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
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