Afghanistan’s President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani on Wednesday signed a decree to release 1,500 Taliban prisoners beginning on March 14, a step the Taliban insists is necessary before talks between the Islamist insurgents and the Afghan government can continue.
Ghani’s office said the prisoners will be released at the rate of 100 per day for 15 days. The other 3,500 Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government will then be released in groups of 500 every two weeks, assuming the Taliban lives up to its commitments under the peace deal it brokered with the United States.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo welcomed Ghani’s decision to release the prisoners after initially voicing some resistance to the idea. Pompeo also applauded the “formation of a national team for intra-Afghan negotiations.”
State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus noted there are still some “challenges” to overcome in Afghanistan, such as the “unacceptable” level of violence against Afghans in rural areas, and the “presidential electoral crisis,” by which she meant that Afghanistan currently has two declared presidents.
Ghani’s rival Abdullah Abdullah also claims to have won the hotly disputed election, accusing Ghani supporters of rigging the vote and had himself sworn in as the true president on the same day as Ghani. There are concerns the entire peace deal could be scuttled by the presidential crisis even if the Taliban plays along.
The Taliban immediately rejected Ghani’s decree to release 1,500 prisoners as insufficient and said they would not negotiate with the Afghan government until all 5,000 Taliban prisoners have been released.
“We never agreed to any conditional release of prisoners. If someone claims this, it will be against the peace accord that we signed on February 29,” a Taliban spokesman exclaimed.
“It is not practical for us to release all 5,000 at once without a Taliban commitment for direct negotiations and a significant reduction in violence,” an Afghan government official countered on Wednesday.
Afghanistan’s Defense Minister Asadullah Khalid said his forces will “remain in defense mode until the end of this week under the guidance of President Ashraf Ghani because of the peace agreement,” but warned that if the Taliban does not cease all attacks, “our troops will target the enemy everywhere.”