Taliban will not participate in intra-Afghan talks until prisoners released: spokesperson

The statement comes after Ghani rejected their demand for the release of prisoners as condition for talks with Kabul

KABUL: The Taliban will not participate in intra-Afghan talks until roughly 5,000 of its prisoners are released, its spokesperson said on Monday.

"If our 5,000 prisoners - 100 or 200 more or less does not matter - do not get released there will be no intra-Afghan talks," Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters by phone.

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A pact signed between the United States and the Taliban in Doha on Saturday said that up to 5,000 jailed Taliban would be released by March 10, however Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday rejected the demand.

Ghani on Sunday rejected 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 Taliban.

“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 Qatar to start a political settlement aimed at ending the United States’ longest war.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told CBS’s “Face the Nation” programme there had been prisoner releases from both sides in the past, and voiced hope that negotiations would begin in the coming days between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

“It’s going to be rocky and bumpy,” Pompeo said. “No one is under any false illusion that this won’t be a difficult conversation.”

Western diplomats see challenges ahead for US negotiators as they shepherd negotiations between Ghani’s government and the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and imposed many restrictions on women and activities deemed “un-Islamic”.

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.”

US, Taliban sign historic deal on American withdrawal from Afghanistan

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 needed for such a major step does not currently exist, Ghani said.

The accord was signed on Saturday by US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban political chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, witnessed by Pompeo.