KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan government said that a repeatedly stalled prisoner swap with the Taliban had largely been completed on Thursday, potentially removing the final hurdle for direct negotiations with the insurgents to end the country’s long war. Preparations have been underway for months in Doha, Qatar’s capital, for the two sides to meet there and begin negotiating an end to the war. But the Taliban refused to start those talks until the Afghan government released the last of 5,000 prisoners whom the United States had committed to freeing in a deal with the insurgents in February, and instead intensified its attacks across Afghanistan. Javid Faisal, a spokesman for the Afghan national security council, said all but “a few” of the 400 remaining Taliban had been freed after the Taliban released Afghan commandos they had been holding. The remainder are about a half-dozen prisoners who are said to have killed American, Australian and French citizens, and whose release the three countries lobbied to block — even as other American officials pushed the Afghans to speed up the freeing of prisoners.

Source: International New York Times September 03, 2020 14:48 UTC