Taliban top council gives nod to start intra-Afghan talks

ISLAMABAD: Top Taliban leadership council, also known as the Rehbari Shoura, has approved the commencement of long-awaited intra-Afghan, a Taliban official privy to the development told Arab News on Sunday.
Majority of the council members, who met during the month of Ramadan, opined that if parts of the peace agreement with the United States, particularly the release of Taliban prisoners, were implemented then there was no harm in starting the dialogue, he said.
“Another meeting of the Shoura will decide the agenda for the intra-Afghan dialogue which is expected to be held soon,” the official said while requesting anonymity. 
He further said that all the leadership council members had been asked to float proposals to finalize the agenda for the dialogue.
The crucial talks, which will determine the political road map of Afghanistan, were initially scheduled to start on March 10 but Taliban refused to take part in the process until 5000 of their prisoners under the Afghan government’s custody were released — a key demand listed in the peace agreement.
The US-Taliban agreement signed on February 29 read that up to 5,000 prisoners of the Taliban and up to 1,000 prisoners of the Afghan government will be released by March 10, the first day of the intra-Afghan dialogue.
The Afghan government has released 2,710 Taliban prisoners by June 3, according to Javid Faisal, the spokesperson for the Office of the National Security Council. He told reporters in Kabul on Sunday that more Taliban prisoners were expected to be freed later in the day.
The Taliban, on the other hand, have released a total of 38 Afghan soldiers and policemen from the group’s prisons in the provinces of Farah and Nimroze, taking the number of freed government’s prisoners to 458, Suhail Shaheen, a spokesperson for the group’s political bureau, said.
Afghan government announced a 21-member team in March to negotiate with the Taliban that will be headed by Masoom Stanekzai, former chief of the country’s National Directorate of Security, the Taliban will form a new team.
The State Department confirmed on Friday that Khalilzad has begun another regional trip to Doha, Islamabad, and Kabul. “The primary focus of Ambassador Khalilzad’s trip is to obtain agreement between the Afghan parties on the practical next steps necessary for a smooth start to intra-Afghan negotiations.” According to the State Department’s statement posted online.