![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/taliban-300x207.jpg\")
\nThought this was going to be stumbling block #1.<\/p>\n
\nThought this was going to be stumbling block #1.<\/p>\n
Kathy Gannon<\/strong><\/p>\n KABUL, Afghanistan \u2014 Afghanistan\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n President Ashraf Ghani\u2019s comments pointed to the first hitch in implementing the fragile deal, which is aimed at ending America\u2019s longest war after more than 18 years and getting rival Afghan factions to agree on their country\u2019s future.<\/p>\n Still, the U.S. has said a planned U.S. troop withdrawal over the next 14 months is linked to the Taliban\u2019s counter-terrorism performance, not to progress in intra-Afghan talks.<\/p>\n Washington\u2019s Peace Envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, who served as America\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I don’t trust them as far as I can spit. Read the rest of the article here: Military Times<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"