Kabul: A three member Taliban team has reached Kabul to begin prisoner exchange process with Afghan government.
Taliban-Afghan talks are the outcome of historic US-Taliban peace deal agreed in Doha, according to which, Afghan government is supposed to released 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange of around 1,000 prisoners released by Taliban.
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“Our three-member technical team will help the process of prisoners’ release by identification of the prisoners, (and) their transportation,” said Zabihullah Mujahid – Taliban spokesperson.
Earlier, President Ashraf Ghani had refused to abide by the prisoner release agreement between United States and Taliban, stating that prisoner swap is an in internal Afghan matter and US had no right to sign agreements with Taliban without the consultation of Afghan government.
However, Afghan government came around after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened to cut US aid to Afghanistan by US$ 1 billion. Afghanistan’s government then announced a 21-member team, headed by Masoom Stanekzai, a former chief of the National Directorate of Security and supporter of President Ashraf Ghani to negotiate with the Taliban and discuss prisoner swap which is a key-point of intra-afghan dialogue aimed to ensure sustainable peace via permanent ceasefire bringing an end to the longest war in US history.
