The radical Taliban movement (banned in Russia) refused to continue to participate in negotiations on the exchange of prisoners with the Afghan government, said the official representative of the Taliban political office in Qatar, Suheil Shahin.
Earlier, representatives of the Taliban radical movement said that the agreement they reached with the United States was violated by Washington and the Afghan government that it supports.
“We sent the technical group of the Commission on Prisoners’ Affairs to Kabul to verify and identify our prisoners, since the release of prisoners should have begun in accordance with the signed agreement and this promise to us. However, unfortunately, their release continues to be delayed under one pretext or another. Therefore, our technical group will not participate in futile meetings with the parties involved, starting tomorrow”, – Shahin wrote on Twitter.
Afghan authorities and Taliban officials agreed to begin an exchange of prisoners on Thursday, April 2. Prior to this, it was assumed that the process would begin on March 31, but then a representative of the National Security Council of Afghanistan, Javid Faisal, said that the parties continued to discuss the issue.
At the end of February, at a ceremony in Qatar, the United States and the Taliban signed the first peace agreement in more than 18 years of war, which provides for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan in 14 months and the start of an inter-Afghan dialogue in March after a prisoner exchange deal.