Taliban await Ghani’s prisoner swap order

PESHAWAR/KABUL: The Taliban have sent vehicles to be ready to collect fighters expected to be released by the Afghan government in a prisoner exchange and said they will honor the deal by handing over 1,000 government troops.

The release, that was expected to be announced on Tuesday, is part of a deal signed by the United States and the Taliban last month that would allow US forces and Nato troops to withdraw from Afghanistan to end more than 18 years of war, reports the international media.

The Taliban have demanded the release of prisoners as a confidence-building measure to pave way for opening direct their talks with the government after talks with the both sides and the United States individually.

Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for President Ashraf Ghani, said on Twitter that the presidential palace would issue a decree with details of the process, and the release was contingent on security and peace developments.

"The Afghan government has reached a frameworkbased on which the release of prisoners will be in exchange for a significant reduction in the level of violence,” he said.

Mr. Ghani promised Monday to announce a decree to free the prisoners, after the US and a number of foreign dignitaries appeared to back his claim to the presidency by sending their representatives to his inauguration.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released a statement Monday saying, “We also welcome President Ghani’s announcement that he will issue a decree March 10 on Taliban prisoner release.”

Taliban officials said late Monday that a flurry of biometric identifications were being conducted on Taliban prisoners, hinting at a mass release, according to prisoners currently in lockup. The Taliban officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk to the media.

A senior Taliban leader in Doha, the group’s political headquarters, said vehicles had been sent to an area near Bagram Prison, north of the capital Kabul, to fetch the freed fighters. “After our conversation with Zalmay Khalilzad (the US special envoy for Afghanistan) on Monday, in which he conveyed to us the release of our 5,000 prisoners, we sent vehicles to pick them up,” he said.

A government source said any release was unlikely in the coming days and could be weeks away. The issue has become one of the biggest sticking points in any progress toward peace, complicated further by differing wording of documents between the United States and the Taliban and the United States and the Afghan government.

“The Taliban need this to show to their rank and file. For the foot soldiers on the ground, a reduction-in-violence agreement, a troop withdrawal agreement signed in Doha means nothing, fighters returning is something they can feel,” said an Asian diplomat in Kabul.

Khalilzad attended Ghani’s swearing-in ceremony in Kabul on Monday. The president had previously rejected the Taliban demand for its fighters to be released. It was unclear whether prisoners would be released from other prisons aside from Bagram, a detention facility located next to a US military base.

It was also not known how many prisoners would be released initially, but there were reports that it could be between 1,000 and 1,800. A senior government official, who declined to be named, said on Tuesday: “In principle we have agreed to release prisoners in order to show our commitment toward bringing peace in Afghanistan but in what conditions the government is going to release them and how many, will be in the decree later this afternoon.”

He said the release would not be on Tuesday or Wednesday but could be “within weeks or months”.

Suhail Shaheen, Taliban’ political spokesman in Qatar, said in a Tweet that his group had handed a detailed list of all 5,000 prisoners to the United States and was waiting for all to be released.

“It will be acceptable only when they are handed over to us in a desert or in detention centers under the observation of our prison officials,’ he said. The US embassy declined to comment. A spokesman for Nato’s mission referred questions to the Afghan government.

Abdul Shukoor Qudoosi, governor of Bagram district, said his office had reports of an unusual arrival of multiple buses in the area, but they could not confirm what the buses were for or whether they were connected to the release.

The Taliban leader in Doha also confirmed they had finalised arrangements for the release of 1,000 prisoners held by them, adding that they had shifted all prisoners to safe locations in Afghanistan.

“We are planning to release the 1,000 prisoners of the Afghan government to the Red Crescent and they could then shift them to their hometowns or pay them cash for traveling home,” he said.

Meanwhile, the United States began withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, the US military said Tuesday, taking a step forward on its peace deal with the Taliban while also praising Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s promise to start releasing Taliban prisoners after he had delayed for over a week.

US military spokesman in Afghanistan Sonny Leggett said in a statement Tuesday that the military had begun its “conditions-based reduction of forces to 8,600 over 135 days.”

Currently, the US has about 13,000 soldiers in Afghanistan – 8,000 of whom are involved in training and advising Afghanistan’s National Security Forces, while about 5,000 are involved in anti-terror operations and militarily supporting the Afghan army when they are requested.