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Afghan authorities mentioned on Friday they’ve began to launch 400 Taliban prisoners, the ultimate hurdle in long-delayed peace talks between the 2 warring sides, at the same time as President Ashraf Ghani warned they had been a “danger to the world”.
The Afghan authorities and the Taliban are set to satisfy inside days of the prisoner launch being accomplished, in a transfer that has drawn widespread condemnation after it emerged lots of the inmates had been concerned in assaults that killed scores of Afghans and foreigners.
A gaggle of 80 prisoners had been launched on Thursday, National Security Council spokesman Javid Faisal mentioned, tweeting that it could “speed up efforts for direct talks and a lasting, nationwide ceasefire”.
The launch of 400 militants was permitted on the weekend by a gathering of 1000’s of outstanding Afghans who mentioned they wished to pave the best way for talks to start in Doha, Qatar, and a doable ceasefire.
But the choice has prompted heartache for the households of these killed by the insurgents.
“If (the Taliban) can’t bring peace and they attack again, thousands of people will be killed and their families will be tormented,” mentioned Bashir Naween, whose brother was killed in a 2017 truck bombing close to the Germany embassy in Kabul, an assault involving one of many militants resulting from be launched.
The prisoners embrace not less than 44 insurgents of specific concern to the United States and different international locations for their function in high-profile assaults, based on an official record seen by AFP.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison mentioned earlier this week he had lobbied for a former Afghan military soldier, who went rogue and killed three Australian colleagues, to remain in jail.
Ghani warned on Thursday that the hardened criminals had been “likely to pose a danger both to us and to (America) and to the world”.
“Until this issue, there was a consensus on the desirability of peace but not on the cost of it,” Ghani mentioned in a video convention organised by a US suppose tank.
“We have now paid the major instalment on cost and that means peace will have consequences.”
A prisoner swap fashioned a part of a deal signed by the Taliban and the US in February, which noticed Washington conform to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in return for numerous commitments from the insurgents together with a pledge to carry peace talks with the Afghan authorities.
The authorities was excluded from that deal, which stipulated Kabul launch 5,000 militants in return for 1,000 Afghan authorities prisoners held by the insurgents.
The Taliban have warned of doable assaults towards the freed prisoners by Islamic State jihadists in coordination with Afghanistan’s spy company.
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