KABUL — While many in the U.S. are celebrating the release of the only American prisoner of war in Afghanistan, the Afghan government is fuming over the detainee swap that paved the way for the deal.
“Recently, five Afghan nationals were released in an exchange for Mr. Bowe Bergdahl, and have been transferred to Qatar, which was against a prior understanding with the Afghan government,” according to a statement from the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs released by the office of President Hamid Karzai.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Ahmad Shakaib Mustaghni said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had assured Karzai in a recent phone conversation that the Taliban detainees exchanged for U.S. Army Sgt Bowe Bergdahl would be released to Afghan custody. Instead, they were released in Qatar and are to stay in that country for a year under an agreement between Washington and the Taliban.
“If the government of the United States has transferred these detainees to the Qatari government to restrict their freedom, this act is completely against all accepted international laws on human rights,” the statement says.
Bergdahl was captured by the Taliban five years ago and was the only U.S. prisoner of war from the war in Afghanistan. Such a prisoner swap had been discussed for years, often as part of long-sought peace negotiations with the Taliban.
What effect the prisoner swap may have on crumbling efforts to start the negotiations between Washington, Kabul and the Taliban is yet to be seen. The release of the five Guantanamo prisoners was once seen as a key demand of the Taliban to enter into talks but serious negotiations have yet to happen, despite years of efforts by the U.S.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on Sunday expressed hope that the prisoner swap may lead to renewed peace talks with the Taliban.
“Our primary focus … was getting Sergeant Bergdahl back,” Hagel told reporters accompanying him on a visit to Afghanistan..“Whether that could lead to possible new breakthroughs with the Taliban, I don’t know. Hopefully it might.”
National Security Adviser Susan Rice echoed that sentiment.
“If this exchange opens that door a little bit (to an Afghan-led reconciliation ) then we would welcome it, and we would certainly hope that in any event the reconciliation, which we have long said was essential, could proceed,” Rice told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Sunday.
The U.S. had been hoping to make such a prisoner exchange the beginning of a process that would lead to reconciliation between the Taliban and Kabul and the negotiated end to the war in Afghanistan, but in the end it appears Washington ran out of time, said Borhan Osman, an analyst with the Afghanistan Analysts Network.
“The Taliban got it the way they wanted it, not the way the United States wanted it,” he said.
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