Afghan President announces to release 175 Taliban prisoners

KABUL: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Friday announced to release 175 prisoners as a goodwill gesture and offered Taliban once again for holding dialogues with the government inside Afghanistan, foreign media reported.

Ashraf Ghani, while addressing a gathering, asked Taliban to send a delegation to Afghanistan in order to received prisoners from Kabul or any other province, Afghan media reported.

The president invited Taliban to commence preparations for peace talks on Afghan land. While welcoming the resolution adopted by the delegates of the peace jirga, Ghani vowed that the government will take steps to implement the demand of the participants of the gathering for a ceasefire.

Calling on Taliban to declare a ceasefire during the month of Ramadan, President Ghani said the government is ready to declare a ceasefire provided that the Taliban group is also ready for a ceasefire.

He said that the government is also ready to provide an opportunity to Taliban for playing their role for the development of the country.

Ghani said that Afghanistan desires friendly ties with Pakistan and the success of the Afghan peace process will also be helpful for the economic development of Pakistan.

He also praised the role of Pakistan and United States for taking forward the Afghanistan peace process.

Earlier in the day, the Taliban said on Friday that the US special peace envoy for Afghanistan should stop calling on Taliban fighters to lay down their arms and convince the United States to end the use of force instead.

Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-born US diplomat, entered a sixth round of talks with the Taliban leadership in Qatar this week in a bid to end America’s longest war, Reuters reported.

“In our opening session, I underscored to the Talibs that the Afghan people, who are their brothers & sisters, want this war to end,” Khalilzad said in a tweet.

“It is time to put down arms, stop the violence, & embrace peace.”

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid issued a series of sharp tweets in response.

“@US4AfghanPeace (Khalilzad’s twitter handle) should forget about the idea of us putting down our arms,” he said.

“Instead of such fantasies, he should drive the idea home (to the U.S.) about ending the use of force and incurring further human and financial losses for the decaying Kabul administration.”

He said the United States must stop repeating failed strategies while expecting different outcomes.

“It would be better if @US4AfghanPeace musters the courage to call a spade a spade, not a gardening tool & accept the current realities.”

After five rounds of talks, Khalilzad reported some progress towards an accord on withdrawing U.S. troops and on how the Taliban would prevent extremists from using Afghanistan to launch attacks.

The Taliban, who refuse to talk to the Afghan government, insist that talks cannot move ahead until foreign forces leave.