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Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Tuesday urged Afghan leadership to take confidence building measures including prisoners' swap for creating a favourable environment for intra-Afghan dialogue as per the peace agreement signed between the United States and Taliban on February 29, 2020 in Doha.

"President Ashraf Ghani needs to seek explanation from United States with regard to the agreement," Foreign Minister Qureshi said in a statement, while referring to Ghani's surprising remarks in which he stated that "there is no commitment to releasing 5,000 Taliban prisoners".

The Taliban, in response, have termed the release of the prisoners as prerequisite for the intra-Afghan negotiation, which according to the peace deal, will start on March 10, 2020. "As per my information, the US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad had been apprising the Afghan leadership regarding negotiations," Qureshi said, adding that prisoners' swap was part of the US-Taliban agreement.

He pointed out that prisoners had also been exchanged in the past and it was needed as a "goodwill" gesture when moving from war to peace. The release of prisoners will not be one-sided, but a two-way process, Qureshi added.

The clause C of Part One of the US-Taliban agreement states: "The United States is committed to start immediately to work with all relevant sides on a plan to expeditiously release combat and political prisoners as a confidence building measure with the coordination and approval of all relevant sides. Up 5,000 prisoners of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban and up to 1,000 prisoners of the other side will be released by March 10, 2020, the first day of intra-Afghan negotiations."

"This is a logical step [prisoners swap], which must be taken," Qureshi said. He cautioned that if "stubbornness" continued things might not move forward.

"Besides [inking] agreements, attitudes also need to be corrected... those who wanted to create obstacles were present before as well and now it is incumbent upon the political leadership to foil any such attempt," Qureshi asserted. The foreign minister said that it was the responsibility of the Afghan leadership to create a favourable environment for the intra-Afghan negotiations, adding that the agreement in Doha was the first step and a major development towards peace and now the next step was intra-Afghan negotiations.

He urged all stakeholders not to waste this opportunity, adding that President Ghani should move forward keeping his country's interests foremost and the Taliban should also display generosity.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020

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