A Taliban militant aims his sophisticated gun at an unseen target. (file photo)
Afghan officials say Kabul™s peace efforts for releasing Taliban militants from prison have not been influential in bringing them to the negotiating table.
“The central government knows they will rejoin the Taliban again after they are released, it is not going to help the peace process,” said Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, deputy provincial governor of the flashpoint southern province of Ghazni, and noted that “The people who are behind killings, bombings, killing innocent civilians and government officials should be punished.”
The officials say that the Taliban prisoners released by Pakistan and dozens of others freed in Afghanistan have gone back to the battlefield.
“The Taliban who are released… rejoin the battlefield again,” said Zurawar Zahid, the police chief of Ghazni, adding over 40 Taliban militants, including some senior commanders were recently freed from Ghazni central prison on Karzai’s orders.
Reports say that Pakistan has released dozens of high-profile Afghan Taliban prisoners over the past few months.
Afghan officials, however, have complained about the manner in which the Pakistanis have released them.
“We don’t even know what happens to them after they’re released,” said Ismail Qasimyar, a senior member of the Afghan High Peace Council, which has been making efforts to initiate dialog with militants who have engaged in warfare with Kabul’s government.
“When they decide to free Taliban, they only inform the Afghan government a few hours before,” he added, saying, “The Taliban releases by Pakistan have not been effective for the Afghanistan peace process.”
Afghanistan is seeking help from its neighbor to open up a direct channel of communications with Taliban militants. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has urged Pakistan several times to facilitate peace talks with the militant group.
On Friday, Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, a spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry , said in a news conference in Islamabad that the Pakistani government is “committed, in principle” to releasing Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who once served as the second-in-command for Taliban in Afghanistan, in the coming days.
Chaudhry added that the objective of releasing Taliban detainees was to “contribute to the reconciliation process in Afghanistan.”
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has also been an advocate of peace talks with Taliban militants since his election campaign, which ended in his May victory.
The Taliban have so far refused to contact the Afghan government.
Over a decade of the costly US-led war in Afghanistan has failed to end militancy in the country and the US which has thousands of troops on the ground in Afghanistan is now trying to sit down for talks with Taliban militants.
IA/HN
Copyright: Press TV