US special representative to meet Taleban negotiators: State Department
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A man walks past a wall painted with a photo of US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taleban delegation leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Kabul, on April 13, 2020.
PHOTO: REUTERS
WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - The chief US negotiator of a deal with the Taleban for a US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan was to hold talks on Monday (April 13) with insurgent officials in Doha on "current challenges" to the US-led peace process, the State Department announced.
The talks between US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad and his Taleban counterparts follow the Kabul government's freeing of some 300 insurgent prisoners and the first release by the insurgents of government detainees.
A dispute over prisoner releases, an increase in Taleban violence and other issues have stalled the US-led effort to end America's longest war and decades of strife in Afghanistan.
A State Department statement issued on Monday said that Mr Khalilzad departed for Doha on Sunday. He was to meet on Monday with Taleban representatives "to discuss current challenges in implementing the US-Taleban Agreement", it said.
The Feb 29 deal for a phased US troop withdrawal called for the freeing of up to 5,000 Taleban detainees and up to 1,000 government prisoners as a prelude to a March 10 opening of peace negotiations between the Taleban and an Afghan delegation that included Kabul officials.
The Taleban, however, demanded that Kabul release all 5,000 detainees at once before they would attend the talks, a demand rejected by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, whose government was not a party to the deal.
Mr Ghani ordered a phased release of 1,500 Taleban prisoners, of whom some 300 have been freed since Wednesday.
On Sunday, the insurgents announced that they turned 20 government prisoners over to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Kandahar. The head of the ICRC's Afghanistan office confirmed the releases, the first by the insurgents since the signing of the US-Taleban deal, on Twitter.
