KABUL: A three-member Taliban team has arrived in Afghanistan to begin a prisoner exchange process.
The meeting will be held today at a hotel in Kabul. The prisoner exchange was one of the key points in a US-Taliban agreement signed in Qatar on 29th February.
Under the conditions of that peace deal, military troops of foreign will relinquish Afghanistan within 14 months, subject to Taliban security guarantees and a promise by the rebels to hold negations with Kabul.
The agreement also specified an exchange of 6,000 prisoners held by the Afghan government and the Afghan Taliban. In this regard, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said, “Our three-member technical team will help the process of prisoners’ release by identification of the prisoners, (and) their transportation.”
The prisoner release had been an important point, with the Taliban and the Afghan government differing over the process and timing of the exchange. However, after weeks of back and forth, the process is set to begin with the arrival of the Taliban team.
Moreover, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had termed this development ‘good news’. He last week flew to Kabul to urge all sides to move forward with the process, which at that point was deadlocked.
Read more: Afghan government set to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners
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