Release of Taliban prisoners slowed down

Pakistan has decided to slow down the pace of release of Taliban detainees and around a dozen prisoners, who were expected to walk out of jails early this month, will have to stay there for some more days before they are set free.

Islamabad has so far released 26 Taliban prisoners in two batches, with 18 detainees being released in September 2012, followed by a second batch of eight prisoners in December.

The decision to set free Taliban leaders was to facilitate the Afghan reconciliation process by persuading the Taliban leadership to join the nascent peace process.

It was expected that the third batch of Taliban detainees, which might also include Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the deputy of Mullah Omar, would be set free by the second week of February in the aftermath of the London trilateral summit of Pakistan, Afghanistan and UK.

However, Pakistan Today reliably learnt on Saturday that the process of release of Taliban detainees had been slowed down. The reason given for the lull is not any deadlock between the stakeholders concerned like Islamabad, Kabul and Washington, but strictly an issue of schedule.

An official said Islamabad was not releasing Mullah Baradar or any other Taliban leader or activist as of now. “This is not because of any deadlock, the process would be resumed after some days,” he said, seeking anonymity.

A diplomatic source said the stakeholders in the Afghan imbroglio had agreed to devise a comprehensive schedule for all matters ranging from the release of Taliban detainees to holding of proposed peace talks with the Taliban in Doha and other venues in various parts of the world.

“So the release of Taliban or some delay in this regard, I would say is an issue of schedule and we shall not see too much into that,” he said.

Pakistan is still believed to be detaining around 80 to 90 Taliban leaders and activists in prisons after having released around two dozen of them in the last three to four months, included the former Taliban justice minister Mullah Nooruddin Turabi.

There have also been reports in western media suggesting that US and other NATO member states were against the release of high profile “terrorists” like Mullah Baradar.

Some reports claimed that US wanted a pre-notification from Islamabad before the release of important Taliban figures like Mullah Baradar so that it could keep a track of their movement once they walked out of prisons.

However, the diplomatic source said those reports were far from truth and reality. “The truth is that all stakeholders, including the Obama administration, are on board when it comes to the release of Taliban detainees,” he said.

“The release of Taliban leaders is seen in all western capitals and Kabul as a good, positive move by Islamabad that could help bring the Taliban to the table of negotiations,” he said.

He said the efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan were likely to pace up in the coming days.

“Contacts are being established between Taliban and other Afghan groups and in Paris in December last, at the informal peace talks between different Afghan organisations, Ahmad Zia Masoud, brother of slain Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Masoud, met the Taliban representatives for the first time and they exchanged their contact details,” the source said.