The US has agreed in principle to release high-ranking Taliban officials from Guantanamo Bay in return for the Afghan insurgent's agreement to open a political office for peace negotiations in Qatar, UK paper the Guardian has learned. According to sources familiar with the talks in the US and in Afghanistan, the handful of Taliban figures will include Mullah Khair Khowa, a former interior minister, and Noorullah Noori, a former governor in northern Afghanistan. More controversially, the Taliban are demanding the release of the former army commander Mullah Fazl Akhund.
Washington is reported to be considering formally handing him over to the custody of another country, possibly Qatar. The releases would be to reciprocate for announcement from the Taliban that they are prepared to open a political office in Qatar to conduct peace negotiations "with the international community" the most significant political breakthrough in ten years of the Afghan conflict. The Taliban are holding just one American soldier, Bowe Bergdahl, a 25-year-old sergeant captured in June 2009, but it is not clear whether he would be freed as part of the deal.
Michael Semple, a former EU envoy in Afghanistan who has maintained contact with senior Taliban figures, agreed that the deal represented a critical moment. Negotiations over the opening of a Taliban political office and the release of prisoners have been underway for more than a year in secret contacts in Germany and in the Gulf between US and Taliban officials, but have been continually held up by political obstacles on all sides. The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, had preferred Saudi Arabia or Turkey to host the Taliban political bureau, but dropped his opposition to Qatar under heavy US pressure.
Paging Lucy to the white courtesy phone. Charlie needs you to hold the ball.