Kabul's negotiating team is ready for the intra-Afghan peace talks with the Taliban movement at any time and put no preconditions for the beginning of the discussion, Chairman of the Afghan High Council for National Reconciliation Abdullah Abdullah said on Wednesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th June, 2020) Kabul's negotiating team is ready for the intra-Afghan peace talks with the Taliban movement at any time and put no preconditions for the beginning of the discussion, Chairman of the Afghan High Council for National Reconciliation Abdullah Abdullah said on Wednesday.
"We put no preconditions for the start of negotiations, and our negotiating team is well prepared to start negotiations at any time," Abdullah said at a video conference organized by the United States Institute of Peace.
The chairman also said that interviews with recently released Taliban prisoners and Afghan government soldiers showed that most of them expressed desire to "live peacefully with their families."
The intra-Afgan talks were initially set to commence on March 10, under the US-Taliban peace deal, but were pushed back due to disagreements over the mutual release of prisoners. The Taliban, in particular, demanded that Kabul free all 5,000 prisoners at once. However, the prisoner exchanges that have been taking place over the last few months, as well as the recent Eid al-Fitr ceasefire, demonstrate some potential for a breakthrough in the Afghan peace process.
Last week, US Special Representative For Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad said that intra-Afghan talks are closer than ever, praising Kabul for freeing over 3,000 Taliban prisoners and the Taliban for releasing more than 500 government prisoners.
