The Afghan National Security Council has announced the release of 71 detainees from the Taliban movement, based on the decision of President Ashraf Ghani to advance the reconciliation process with the movement and combat the outbreak of the new Corona virus in prisons, according to a statement of the council.
The Taliban had announced on the 17th of this month that it had released a third batch of prisoners of its Afghan forces, as part of the implementation of the peace agreement concluded in February in the Qatari capital, Doha.
A Taliban spokesman said that the movement has released twenty detainees from the government forces in the eastern province of Laghman, which raises the number of released prisoners from the army and police to sixty in three batches.
The Taliban had released twenty other detainees from the government forces in Laghman province as well, while the first batch included prisoners who were being held in the southern province of Kandahar.
On the other hand, the Afghan government released from the beginning of this month, 361 members of the movement from Bagram prison in Parwan state, north of Kabul, and said that it obtained a pledge from them not to return to the fighting.
It is noteworthy that the Taliban and the United States signed on February 29 in Doha an agreement paving the way according to a timetable for the gradual withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in exchange for guarantees from the movement.
The agreement provides for the release of about five thousand Taliban prisoners, compared to about a thousand prisoners from government forces.