The Afghan Taliban have expressed their willingness to participate in the intra-Afghan peace talks scheduled on March 10 if the Afghanistan government agreed to release their prisoners.
“If the provisions of the agreements are implemented and prisoners are released, the Islamic Emirate is prepared for intra-Afghan negotiations on March 10. Our negotiation team and agenda are ready and will go ahead as agreed,” Suhail Shaheen, the spokesperson of Taliban’s political office based in Doha said in a statement.
Shaheen, however, made it clear that Taliban would not be responsible if there was a delay in the start of intra-Afghan dialogue. “If the negotiations are delayed beyond the stated date, the responsibility will rest with the others,” the Taliban spokesperson added.
The deal signed between the United States and Taliban aimed at ending the US’s longest war is facing obstacles after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani announced that his government had not agreed to a clause set out in the deal.
Ghani had objected to arrangements within the deal that would see the Afghan government release 5,000 Taliban prisoners as a condition for direct talks between the armed group and the government.
“The government of Afghanistan has made no commitment to free 5,000 Taliban prisoners,” President Ghani told reporters in Kabul on Sunday, a day after the accord was signed in Qatar’s capital, Doha.
After 18 months of negotiations and nearly 20 years of war, the US and the Taliban signed an agreement set to pave the way for the withdrawal of all US and NATO troops from Afghanistan and a commitment by the Taliban that Afghan territory will not be used to launch attacks on other countries.
The four-part agreement sets March 10 as the date for an intra-Afghan dialogue with Ghani’s government as well as a prisoner-swap which would see the government release 5,000 Taliban prisoners and the Taliban release 1,000 captives. However, Ghani said: “It is not in the authority of the United States to decide, they are only a facilitator”.
