{"id":27734,"date":"2020-03-01T15:18:03","date_gmt":"2020-03-01T15:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/uncategorized\/2020\/03\/01\/afghan-peace-deal-hits-first-snag-over-prisoner-releases\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T06:35:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T06:35:42","slug":"afghan-peace-deal-hits-first-snag-over-prisoner-releases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/news\/2020\/03\/01\/afghan-peace-deal-hits-first-snag-over-prisoner-releases\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghan peace deal hits first snag over Taliban prisoner releases"},"content":{"rendered":"
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President Trump and Defense Secretary Mark Esper make remarks on the recent peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

KABUL, Afghanistan \u2014 Afghanistan\u2019s president said Sunday that he will not free thousands of Taliban prisoners ahead of all-Afghan power-sharing talks set for next week, publicly disagreeing with a timetable for a speedy prisoner release laid out just a day earlier in a U.S.-Taliban peace agreement<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Ashraf Ghani\u2019s comments pointed to the first hitch in implementing the fragile deal, which is aimed at ending America\u2019s longest war after more than 18 years and getting rival Afghan factions to agree on their country\u2019s future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, the U.S. has said a planned U.S. troop withdrawal<\/a> over the next 14 months is linked to the Taliban\u2019s counter-terrorism performance, not to progress in intra-Afghan talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington\u2019s Peace Envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, who served as America\u2019s first ambassador to Afghanistan after the 2001 U.S. invasion, spent the past 17 months running on-again, off-again talks with the Taliban<\/a> to hammer out the agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S.-Taliban deal signed Saturday in the Middle Eastern State of Qatar envisions the release of up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners by the Afghan government ahead of talks between Afghan factions meant to begin March 10 in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. The Taliban would release up to 1,000 prisoners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ghani told a news conference in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Sunday that this wasn\u2019t a promise the United States could make. He said the release of any prisoners was a decision for his government to take and that he wasn\u2019t ready to release prisoners before the start of negotiations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe request has been made by the United States for the release of prisoners and it can be part of the negotiations but it cannot be a precondition,\u201d Ghani said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S.-Taliban deal is seen as a historic opportunity to extricate the United States from Afghanistan, a nation convulsed by conflict since the Soviet invasion in December 1979. Yet it could also unravel quickly, particularly if the Taliban fail to deliver on a promise that no terror attacks <\/a>would be launched from Afghan soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The intra-Afghan talks between squabbling political factions and rival Taliban in Afghanistan are even more intricate \u2014 even if a potential failure might not slow the withdrawal of American forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\t