May 09 (The Killid Group) – The Afghan government has so far released a thousand of the Taliban prisoners out of the 5,000 it committed to free as a part of the U.S.-Taliban peace deal to end the 18-year conflict in the country.
Javid Faisal, a spokesman for the Afghan National Security Council (NSC), said in a recent tweet that the government has released 1,000 Taliban prisoners from jail and will continue to set free up to 1,500 members of the insurgent group.
He urged the Taliban for speeding up the process of prisoner release, reduction in hostilities and starting the intra-Afghan peace talks.
A delay in the process of prisoner release cannot be justified, he added.
Under a peace pact struck between the U.S. and the armed Taliban, the Afghan government is supposed to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners, as a confidence-building measure ahead of the intra-Afghan peace talks.
The U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, Amb. Zalmay Khalilzad, meanwhile in his recent trips to Doha, New Delhi and Islamabad, discussed the necessity of accelerating prisoners release process, reduction in violence, moving the intra-Afghan talks forward and the cooperation of all sides in addressing the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
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