Afghan President agrees to conduct negotiations with the Taliban in Doha

Al-Jazeera correspondent in Afghanistan has quoted Mutlaq Al-Qahtani, the Qatari foreign minister’s envoy, that Afghan President Muhammad Ashraf Ghani has expressed his agreement to hold Afghan negotiations in the Qatari capital, Doha.

The Qatari envoy met President Ghani in the capital, Kabul, on Thursday, when they discussed launching the Afghan negotiations.

Siddig Siddiqui, spokesman for the Afghan President, said that the State of Qatar supports the efforts of the Afghan government to bring peace to Afghanistan, and that his government looks forward to a greater Qatari role in this field.

On the other hand, the American envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, called for the start of negotiations between the Afghans as soon as possible.

Khalilzad praised the recent decisions of the Afghan government and the Taliban movement, in which the two parties released large numbers of detainees, according to the Doha agreement signed by the American side with the Taliban on February 29.

The Doha agreement provides for the departure of foreign forces from Afghanistan within 14 months in exchange for security guarantees from the Taliban, and requires the release of the detainees, in preparation for launching peace talks between the Taliban and the Kabul government.

The American envoy, in a tweet on Twitter, welcomed the Taliban's readiness to participate in the negotiations within a week of the commitment to release the prisoners, describing these developments as positive despite the fact that some details need to be worked out.

The spokesman for the Taliban political office, Suhail Shaheen, said on Twitter that the movement sees the release of detainees as an important and positive step, as stated in the Doha Agreement, and that it is committed to the process of releasing government detainees.

Shaheen added that when the process of releasing 5,000 detainees is completed according to the list, the movement is ready to start negotiations between Afghans within a week.

In the latest news of the prisoners' release, the Taliban announced the release of 46 Afghan forces detainees in Wardak and Ghazni provinces, central Afghanistan.

Shaheen said that the movement released in a separate operation, the release of 30 members of the Afghan forces who were recently captured in Ghazni province, as a goodwill gesture.