KABUL freed 60 people but they included only 19 military personnel and the rest were civilians.
The Taliban yesterday announced they freed 60 government personnel in Kandahar and Laghman provinces and handed them over to ICRC as part of the US-Taliban agreement.
NSC spokesman Javed Faisal told a press conference here that the Afghan government had released 361 Taliban prisoners in an effort to advance the peace process.
The National Directorate of Security and the Attorney General’s Office thoroughly vetted the prisoners, who took an oath never to return to the battlefield.
The Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has received the same assurance from the group’s leadership in Doha.
Faisal said 1,500 Taliban prisoners would be released in the first round from the Afghan government.
He said the Taliban also released 20 individuals in Laghman and 40 others in Kandahar province last week.
He said the Taliban claimed they released mostly government employees and security forces but in fact they were mostly civilians and surrenders to them.
He said out of the 20 freed by Taliban in Kandahar, 10 were civilians, including four under age boys.
He said out of the total 60 freed by the Taliban in Laghman, nine were Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers, 12 Afghan Local Police (ALP) personnel who had surrendered to them.
He said the Afghan government had shared a list of their prisoners with the Taliban and had asked them to release them.
pk/ma
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