Afghan peace deal hits first snag over Taliban prisoner releases
Thought this was going to be stumbling block #1.
Kathy Gannon
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s president said Sunday that he will not free thousands of Taliban prisoners ahead of all-Afghan power-sharing talks set for next week, publicly disagreeing with a timetable for a speedy prisoner release laid out just a day earlier in a U.S.-Taliban peace agreement.
President Ashraf Ghani’s comments pointed to the first hitch in implementing the fragile deal, which is aimed at ending America’s longest war after more than 18 years and getting rival Afghan factions to agree on their country’s future.
Still, the U.S. has said a planned U.S. troop withdrawal over the next 14 months is linked to the Taliban’s counter-terrorism performance, not to progress in intra-Afghan talks.
Washington’s Peace Envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, who served as America’s first ambassador to Afghanistan after the 2001 U.S. invasion, spent the past 17 months running on-again, off-again talks with the Taliban to hammer out the agreement.
The U.S.-Taliban deal signed Saturday in the Middle Eastern State of Qatar envisions the release of up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners by the Afghan government ahead of talks between Afghan factions meant to begin March 10 in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. The Taliban would release up to 1,000 prisoners.
I don’t trust them as far as I can spit. Read the rest of the article here: Military Times
Category: Afghanistan, Taliban
I don’t think this is going to make a difference
We are still going to withdraw
I’d love to see this response to President Ashraf Ghani as the Us cases its colo5rs and departs.
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/64140809-a9f8-4bc9-82fe-5f388417092c
Go for it. What’s the worst thing that can happen??
Wrong? Like Commander Zero precipitously withdrawing the troops from Iraq and creating a power vacuum, allowing the ISIS Caliphate wrong?
This is going to be like that scene in Ghostbusters, when the Mayor orders a cop to shut off the containment grid.
(Grin)
Where is my shocked face when I need it. And yeah, who DIDN’T see this coming? Anyone? Bueller? Naturally the current Afghan gubmint don’t want us to leave. Who would want to lose the sugar teat they’ve been sucking on for the last 18 years?
Just tell the Taliban to chill. When we get the last of our troops and moveable equipment out we can deliver their prisoners. Via a HANO.
Splat!!!!!
With the stock sell off last week the military industrial complex decided we need to stay in AFG a few more years.
The military industrial complex doesn’t make policy, despite what you might have watched in the Pseudo-History Channel.