Regional stability: Afghan govt, Taliban press for release of more inmates

Peace council chief says released prisoners are ‘important’ members of peace negotiations.

KABUL:

The Afghan government and Taliban said on Saturday they wanted to see more Taliban inmates released from Pakistani jails, in a move seen as a step to bring militants to the table before Nato’s 2014 withdrawal.

Earlier this week, an agreement was reached at a meeting between government officials and Afghanistan’s High Peace Council (HPC) in Islamabad that resulted in the release of a group of Taliban in Pakistan.

“We hope the releasing of Taliban prisoners from Pakistani jails continues and more Taliban who are willing for talks are released,” Chief of Afghanistan’s HPC Salahuddin Rabbani told reporters in Kabul on Saturday.

Afghan officials have pressed for the release of senior Taliban leaders believing they could help bring militants to the negotiating table, to end over a decade of war ahead of the 2014 pull-out of US-led Nato troops.

Rabbani said nine members of the Taliban were released but did not include the group’s former deputy leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was captured in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in 2010.

“Those who were released were also important members and they can help us in peace and negotiations,” he added.

The Taliban welcomed the move, calling it a “positive step” to “increase trust between two neighboring nations and people.”

They also requested the rest of the prisoners to be released in a statement posted on one of their websites.

The militants have always publicly refused to negotiate directly with Kabul, calling the government of President Hamid Karzai a ‘US puppet’.

Preliminary contacts between the US and the Taliban in Doha were broken off in March when the militants failed to secure the release of five of their comrades held at the Guantanamo Bay prison on the US base in Cuba.

Support from Pakistan, which backed the Taliban regime that held power in Kabul from 1996 to 2001, is seen as crucial to peace in Afghanistan after the departure of Nato combat forces.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 18^th, 2012.