{"id":356,"date":"2020-06-06T16:01:56","date_gmt":"2020-06-06T16:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/Delta\/?p=356"},"modified":"2020-07-20T09:11:37","modified_gmt":"2020-07-20T09:11:37","slug":"taliban-prisoner-release-amid-eid-al-fitr-ceasefire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sabawoon.af\/fm\/taliban-prisoner-release-amid-eid-al-fitr-ceasefire\/","title":{"rendered":"Taliban prisoner release amid Eid al-Fitr ceasefire"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>Afghanistan&#8217;s President Ashraf Ghani has announced the release of up to 2,000 Taliban prisoners, after the Islamist group proposed a ceasefire.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The announcement came shortly after the Taliban agreed the surprise three-day truce with Mr Ghani&#8217;s government for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The president said their release was a &#8220;goodwill gesture&#8221; designed &#8220;to ensure the success of the peace process&#8221;.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Mr Ghani also said his government was ready to hold further peace talks.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>&#8220;President Ghani today initiated a process to release up to 2,000 Taliban prisoners&#8230; in response to the Taliban&#8217;s announcement of a ceasefire,&#8221; a presidential spokesman wrote on Twitter.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<ul>\r\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-asia-51691947\">What will Taliban do after signing US deal?<\/a><\/li>\r\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-asia-51674103\">Afghanistan: the long road to peace<\/a><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The issue of Taliban prisoners has proved a contentious one during the peace talks between Mr Ghani&#8217;s government and the hardline Islamist group.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-asia-52199398\">Last month, historic face-to-face talks broke down over a prisoner swap<\/a>\u00a0&#8211; part of a US-Taliban deal signed in February without the involvement of the government.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Arguments over the swap &#8211; involving thousands of Taliban fighters and 1,000 pro-government forces &#8211; delayed the start of further peace talks.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>But the latest announcement is likely to raise hopes among Afghans and international observers of a longer-term reduction in violence as well as possible progress in any future talks.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Afghanistan&#8217;s President Ashraf Ghani has announced the release of up to 2,000 Taliban prisoners, after the Islamist group proposed a ceasefire. The announcement came shortly after the Taliban agreed the surprise three-day truce with Mr Ghani&#8217;s government for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr. The president said their release was a &#8220;goodwill gesture&#8221; designed &#8220;to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabawoon.af\/fm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabawoon.af\/fm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabawoon.af\/fm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabawoon.af\/fm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabawoon.af\/fm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sabawoon.af\/fm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabawoon.af\/fm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabawoon.af\/fm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabawoon.af\/fm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabawoon.af\/fm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}