Pak welcomes Afghan council’s recommendation to release Taliban prisoners

Islamabad, August 9

Pakistan on Sunday welcomed a traditional Afghan council’s recommendation to release the remaining 400 Taliban members, expressing hope that the move will help in an early start to negotiations between Afghanistan’s warring sides.

The traditional Afghan council concluded Sunday with hundreds of delegates agreeing to free 400 Taliban members.

“We hope that with the implementation of this step relating to the prisoners’ release, as envisaged in the US-Taliban Peace Agreement, the intra-Afghan negotiations will commence at the earliest,” the Foreign Office (FO) said in a statement.

The deal negotiated between the US and Taliban calls for the government to free 5,000 prisoners and for the Taliban to free 1,000 government and military personnel in its custody as a goodwill gesture ahead of the start of negotiations.

It said Pakistan repeatedly emphasised that the Afghan leaders must seize this historic opportunity and work together constructively through intra-Afghan negotiations to secure a comprehensive, broad-based and inclusive political settlement in Afghanistan.

The international community must also reinforce its support for the success of intra-Afghan negotiations for sustained and durable peace and stability in Afghanistan.

For its part, Pakistan has consistently supported an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process. Pakistan’s positive contribution to the process is internationally recognised, said the FO.

Pakistan reaffirmed its support for a peaceful, stable, united, democratic, sovereign and prosperous Afghanistan, at peace with itself and with its neighbours, according to the FO. PTI