Afghan government clears way for peace talks with Taliban

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Taliban prisoners in Herat in mid-June: Thousands of fighters have been released

Photo: JALIL REZAYEE / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock

The Afghan government sees the way paved for peace talks with the Taliban.

According to the National Security Council, the agreed exchange of prisoners with the militant Islamists was concluded.

"Except for a few," the 400 fighters whose release the Taliban had recently requested have all been released, said the committee's spokesman, Jawid Faisal, on Twitter.

The government in Kabul now expects direct peace talks with the insurgents to start "immediately".

Only a few Islamist fighters have not been released due to reservations by "partners" of Afghanistan.

The governments of France and Australia had previously protested against the release of several Taliban fighters classified as particularly dangerous.

These seven Taliban are to be brought to Qatar, where the start of the peace talks in Doha is planned.

The Afghan government's 21-strong negotiating team will initially demand an unconditional ceasefire, the delegation said.

Many of those released are said to have been involved in serious attacks

The Afghan government released nearly 200 Taliban fighters from prisons earlier this week.

You are part of a group of several hundred inmates who are numbered among the hard core of extremists and who are held responsible for serious attacks like the one near the German embassy in Kabul three years ago.

According to an official list available to the AFP news agency, 150 of the 400 prisoners were sentenced to death for particularly serious crimes.

Many of the prisoners were involved in serious attacks in which numerous Afghans and foreigners were killed.

In August, an Afghan tribal assembly voted for the release of these fighters as well.

The Taliban had made the release of their fighters a prerequisite for direct peace negotiations with the government in Kabul.

In the past few months the Afghan government had already released 5,000 captured Taliban fighters.

The Islamists have already fulfilled their part of the agreement and released 1,000 members of the Afghan security forces from captivity - most recently six special forces of the Afghan army, as the state broadcaster RTA reported.

The Taliban signed an agreement with the US government in February that regulates the gradual withdrawal of US forces.

The prerequisite for withdrawal is a decline in violence in Afghanistan.

The Afghan government in Kabul was not involved because the Taliban rejected direct talks at the time.

The violent conflict in the country continued unabated despite the agreements.

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jak / AFP