Afghanistan Times
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KABUL: The process of prisoner release between the Afghan government and the Taliban has been accelerated as 710 Taliban prisoners were released on Saturday and 290 others on Sunday as part of peace efforts.
The National Security Council said that based on President Ashraf Ghani’s decree, the Afghan government has freed hundreds of Taliban prisoners.
NSA Spokesman, Javid Faisal said these prisoners were freed from the Parwan central detention and other prisons across the country.
To encourage the Taliban to engage into intra-Afghan-negotiations, President Ghani on his Eid message announced the release of 2,000 Taliban prisoners, saying that the prisoner swap process would be accelerated.
Faisal said that over 1,710 Taliban prisoners have been freed so far since President Ghani’s decree. The Afghan government earlier set about 1,000 Taliban prisoners freed after weeks of pressure by the US diplomats.
Faisal said that the technical teams of the Taliban and the Afghan government are working on the prisoners’ swap process in Kabul.
The Taliban had also confirmed the arrival of their technical delegation in Kabul to monitor the prisoner’s release.
The militants on Saturday said that they have released 73 prisoners held in their custody in Logar, Khost, Paktia, Paktika, Balkh and Kunduz.
The militant’s Qatar based political office’s spokesman, Suhail Shaheen said that the total number of the prisoners released by them are upto 420 people.
Based on the US-Taliban peace deal signed on February 29th in the Gulf State of Qatar, Doha, the Afghan government should release 5,000 Taliban’s prisoners in return for the 1,000 Afghan National Defense and Security Forces held in the militant’s custody.
