Afghan President Ashraf Ghani will decree the release of at least 1,000 Taliban prisoners later this week, sources said on Monday (March 9th) from five sources.
Such a measure will be able to facilitate the opening of direct talks between Kabul and the Islamist insurgents in line with the peace agreement that the latter have signed with the United States. According to two sources, the decree will concern elderly prisoners. The Taliban are calling for the release of 5,000 of their people in advance of talks with the Afghan government.
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At the same time, and this development is likely to complicate matters, Kabul was the scene on Monday of two competing investiture ceremonies, since Ashraf Ghani and his rival in the presidential election last September, Abdullah Abdullah, were both sworn in. The two men claim to be the winner of the ballot.
Despite the efforts of the United States Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, who attempted to forge a compromise between the two men, the two rivals were both sworn in. Zalmay Khalilzad and the commander of the NATO forces in Afghanistan, Scott Miller, attended the investiture ceremony of Ghani at the presidential palace. Abdullah had gathered his family in another enclosure in the Afghan capital. "This is definitely the worst case scenario , " said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia program at the Wilson Center. "The question is, how do you involve two separate Afghan governments in an already complex negotiation with the Taliban?"
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These intra-Afghan talks are a consequence of the agreement signed on February 29 between the United States and the Taliban for the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. "This is total confusion: the two men refuse to negotiate," said a senior American official in Kabul during the day. The Election Commission announced last month that Ghani had been re-elected for a second term, but Abdullah rejects the official results of the September 28 poll and claims victory.
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