Most of the members of the Supreme Council of Tribes in Afghanistan (the Loya Jirga) agreed at their meeting today, Saturday, in the capital, Kabul, to release 400 Taliban detainees, in preparation for the start of political negotiations between the Afghan forces in the Qatari capital, Doha.
And the head of the Afghan Reconciliation Committee, Abdullah Abdullah, announced that all the remaining Taliban detainees were Afghans, and none of them were foreign fighters.
He added that political negotiations would start 3 days after their release, and the tribal leaders stressed in the "Loya Jirga" meeting the need to remove obstacles that hinder efforts to achieve peace in the country.
Al-Jazeera correspondent in Afghanistan quoted a source at the "Loya Jirga" meeting - which started on Friday and is expected to end tomorrow - that most of the tribal leaders demanded the release of Taliban detainees, and if they were approved for their release, the Afghan talks would start on August 10.
It is noteworthy that the Afghan government refuses to release these people because they committed what it says are serious crimes that have led to the deaths of Afghan and foreign citizens in a number of attacks, while the Taliban insists on their release before any negotiations with the government start.
RT @SecPompeo: I commend the participants in the “Loya Jirga” Grand Council meeting as they sit together to strengthen national support for peace in Afghanistan. The parties are ready to embark on a political process to reach a negotiated settlement, after 40 years of war, bloodshed and devastation.
- US State Department (@USAbilAraby) August 7, 2020
A French family
In a related context, the French Press Agency reported today that the father of a French woman who was killed in a bombing in Ghazni - south of the Afghan capital - in 2003 refuses to release the killers of their daughter, Bettina Goslard, who was working for an international aid agency inside Afghanistan.
The French woman was killed by two men on the list of Taliban detainees in the prisons of the Afghan government, which will be included in the upcoming decision to release the remaining detainees of the movement.
On February 29, the Qatari capital, Doha, hosted the signing of a historic agreement between the United States and the Taliban that paves the way - according to a timetable - for a gradual US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and a prisoner exchange between the movement and government forces.
The agreement stipulated the release of about 5 thousand Taliban prisoners in exchange for about a thousand prisoners from the government, as well as not allowing the movement to take Afghan territories as a starting point for striking the interests of America and its allies.
Afghanistan has suffered a war since October 2001, when an international military coalition overthrew the Taliban, due to its association at the time with al-Qaeda, which adopted the September 11 attacks of the same year in the United States.