Taliban rejects government’s conditional prisoner release

Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban’s spokesman in Doha said that the group had never agreed to the conditional release of the 5,000 prisoners from Afghan jails.

It comes as on Tuesday President Ghani issued a decree to release 1500 Taliban prisoners, an act for removing obstacles ahead of the intra-Afghan talks.

The remaining 3500 prisoners would be released after a tangible reduction in violence by the Taliban and all released prisoners will have to give “a written guarantee to not return to the battlefield.”

But in an interview with a Pakistani the News, Shaheen said that they did not make such an agreement with the US on 29th February in Doha, the capital of Qatar. 

“We never made any such commitment. It is properly elaborated in the peace accord reached with the US in Doha on February 29 that some confidence-building measures would be taken prior to initiation of the intra-Afghan dialogue,” Shaheen said.

Meanwhile, a senior Taliban commander in Ghazni has told the News, “There is no way we can accept this latest demand of the Afghan government. Our fighters are mujahideen and they would always fight for freedom of their country and Islamic Sharia in Afghanistan.”

The US Army has also begun pulling out troops from Afghanistan as part of the agreement with the Taliban. The US forces will be reduced from around 14000 forces to 8600 soldiers in 135 days after the deal.