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KABUL: The Taliban group has reacted to President Ashraf Ghani and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, who is now the President of the High Council for Peace and National Reconciliation, over formation of an inclusive government, saying that what is going on in Kabul is “only repetition of the past failed experiences”.
The Taliban Qatar based political office’s spokesman, Suhail Shaheen said in a tweet that solution of the Afghanistan’s issue depended on implementation of the US-Taliban agreement. “The prisoner releases process should be completed and the intra-Afghan negotiations should start,” he added.
But the Afghanistan National Security Council earlier said that the Taliban failed to fulfill the US-Taliban agreement signed on February 29th in Qatari capital, Doha.
“Taliban are bound by their agreement with the US to release 1,000 ANDSF prisoners, reduce violence, and move to direct negotiations,” he said and added “Instead, they stepped up violence, fell behind on prisoners release, and created obstacles and excuses for negotiations.”
Based on US-Taliban peace deal, the Afghan government should release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in return for 1,000 Afghan security forces held in Taliban’s custody.
Ghani and Abdullah on Sunday signed power-sharing agreement to end the country’s political crisis amid a fragile peace process and threatened pandemic covid-19.
Based on the agreement, Abdullah leads the High Council for Peace and National Reconciliation and would have fifty percent share in the cabinet. On February 2020, the Independent Election Commission after a very long delay announced Ghani as winner of the 2019 presidential polls. But his top rival Abdullah – accused the IEC of committing fraud – rejected the result and declared himself as a winner.
In early March, both leaders committed oath taking ceremony in their palaces which were not located in a distant spot to each other. The two feud leaders’ disputes of power sharing has even brought the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo in Afghanistan, who was failed to mediate, but warned to up hold 1 billion dollar in aid to Afghanistan.
