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KABUL: The National Security Council has said that the release of the Taliban prisoner is a complicated, technical and legal process and that any extensional propaganda in regards would sabotage the process.
NSA’s Spokesman Javid Faisal in a tweet said that the Taliban have not agreed on a ceasefire but instead the group has been intensifying the violence. “The number of prisoners change continuously,” he added.
The Taliban have submitted the list of their prisoners with a complete identification to the Afghan government but some media outlets have quoted the group’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid as saying that the list of the prisoners, which has been sent by the government to the Taliban, is not regular and that it should be revised.
The NSA in a statement had earlier said that the release of the Taliban prisoners would be conducted in accordance to President Ghani’s decree.
Around 100 prisoners would be released in consideration to the residential needs, age and that they would not go back to the battlefields, reads the statement. It also said that the Taliban fighters would be setting on a direct negotiation table with the Afghan government.
After the second video conference conducted between Taliban and government’s peace communication team with the presence of US, Qatar and International Community of the Red Cross, the Taliban Qatar Based Political Office’s Spokesman Suhail Shaheen said that a delegation would be visiting Afghanistan to confirm the release of the prisoners. But NSA’s spokesman said on Saturday that the Taliban delegation’s trip to Afghanistan has been delayed.
On February 29th , the US and Taliban had signed a peace deal, which allowed the release of 5,000 Taliban’s prisoners but Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has opposed the decision, saying that he had not committed the prisoner’s swap and that the issue should be discussed in the intra-Afghan negotiations.
However, he signed a decree which pave the ground for a gradual prisoners release, citing their peace deal with Washington, the Taliban insisted on the release of their prisoners at the same time.
After a long time consideration, the Afghan government has recently announced a delegation compromised of 15 members to continue the peace negotiations with the Taliban. The formation of negotiation team has been welcomed by several foreign officials, including the US envoy for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad.
