Taliban halt talks with Afghan government over delay in prisoners' swap

The Taliban broke off talks with Afghan government on prisoners' swap over the continued delay in releasing around 5000 of its members currently in the country's jails, putting the ongoing peace process at risk.
The Taliban announced late Tuesday they will not attend the 'fruitless' meetings with Afghan government authorities, as the two sides were scheduled to meet for another round of talks on Wednesday.
"We sent a technical team of the 'Prisoners' Commission' to Kabul for verification and identification of our prisoners as release of prisoners was to start as per the signed agreement and the promise made to us," said Suhail Shaheen, the spokesman for Taliban's Doha political office.
"But, unfortunately, their release has been delayed under one pretext or another till now. Therefore, our technical team will not participate in fruitless meetings with relevant sides starting from tomorrow," he said in a tweet on Tuesday late.
Last week, the Afghan government and the Taliban confirmed that their respective technical teams had first ever face to face interaction on the prisoners' exchange and the two sides had agreed to continue the discussions.
As per the February 29, 2020 peace deal, prior to the intra-Afghan negotiation the Afghan government is required to release 5000 Taliban prisoners and in return the Taliban will free 1000 prisoners of the government they have in their captivity. The Afghan government blamed the Taliban for making 'excuses' in moving forward on the peace process and announced they would continue work towards the release of the prisoners.
"We ask the Taliban to not sabotage the process by making excuses," Afghan media quoted Javid Faisal, a spokesperson for the National Security Council in Kabul, stated in response to the Taliban's announcement. Faisal also stated that the Afghan government would continue its work on the prisoners' release plan.
Brig (retd) Mahmood Shah, analyst and Afghan affairs expert, said that the Afghan government will have to agree to release the Taliban prisoners under pressure from the US government. He pointed out that releasing of the prisoners was part of the February 29, 2020 peace agreement between United States and the Taliban as one of the key confidence building measures to initiate intra-Afghan negotiation.
"The intra-Afghan negotiation was scheduled to start on March 10, 2020 but it hit a snag due to stubbornness of Ashraf Ghani's administration to agree on freeing 5000 Taliban prisoners," he added. He continued that such 'hiccups' will also occur in future, as the Afghan government has its own agenda which it wants to achieve through such tactics, adding that Ghani administration is also aware that it has no option but to abide by what the US desires.
To a question, he said that the violence in Afghanistan would likely continue until a substantial breakthrough in the peace process between the Taliban and the Kabul administration is achieved, adding that all the sides need to understand the sensitivity of the complex process and show flexibility for durable peace in the war-torn Afghanistan.