Taliban offers ceasefire for return of prisoners

Friday, 16 July 2021Newsdesk

The Taliban have proposed a three-month ceasefire in Afghanistan in return for the release of 7,000 captured fighters, a government official said. Nader Nadery, an Afghan government negotiator, described the proposal as a "big demand".

New Delhi, 16 July 2021

As per news report of BBC, the government has so far not said how it will react. Clashes between the government and the Taliban have intensified since US troops began to withdraw from the country. The Taliban recently claimed their fighters had retaken 85% of territory in Afghanistan - a figure impossible to independently verify and disputed by the government. Other estimates say the Taliban controls more than a third of Afghanistan's 400 districts. Mr Nadery said Taliban leaders had also requested that their names be removed from a United Nations blacklist. Last year 5,000 Taliban prisoners were released and it is believed that many of them returned to the battlefield, worsening violence in the country, says BBC correspondent Lyse Doucet.

Source -bbc.com