Afghan government uses Taliban prisoners as pressure card

Nahla Abdel Moneim

The Afghan government has postponed the release of Taliban prisoners, Jawed Faisal, a spokesman for the Afghan National-Security Adviser’s office, said on March 15. The second postponement of the release of prisoners, totaling 5,000, according to an agreement with the United States, bodes ill for the relations between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

The Taliban and the United States signed on February 29 a agreement ending 19-year-old conflict. The US would gradually withdraw its military forces from Afghanistan and the release of Taliban prisoners. A total of 1,000 Afghan government elements would be released according to the agreement.

The postponement comes in amid conflicting political interests of the government and the Taliban. There should be negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban for the settlement of the country’s domestic conditions.

The Afghan government postponed the release of Taliban prisoners earlier.

Apparently, the Afghan government wants to use the Taliban prisoners as means for political maneuver in a bid to get a greater role in the country’s political future. It does not want to be excluded as happened in the US negotiations with the Taliban.

Moreover, the Afghan government is fully aware in case of negotiations with the Taliban, it will have no other pressure card. In the same vein, the Taliban wants to wrap up the domestic negotiations before these talks even begin. The release of prisoners simply means that the Taliban defeated the US and the Afghan government.

Meanwhile, the Taliban has returned to violence and targeted the Afghan forces in a bid to show its control on the ground. That would increase violence in Afghanistan, which topped countries with the number of people killed by terrorist attacks, according to Global Terrorism index (GTI) of the Institute for Economics and Peace.

It classified the Taliban as the world’s most violent armed group. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said that the postponement is aimed at realizing peace and to impose guarantees that the Taliban would not return to violence again.