The Taliban asked for the release of more Taliban prisoners as part of the US- Taliban deal in a meeting with US special peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in Doha, Qatar on Wednesday evening, the group’s Doha office spokesperson Dr. Muhammad Naeem said in a tweet. 

Calling for the strict implementation of the US-Taliban deal signed on February 29 of this year, the Taliban demanded the removal of blacklisting of its leaders. The Afghan government, however, rejected the Taliban’s demand and said that the group’s new demand has “no importance” for it, a government spokesperson quoted by TOLOnews.

The Afghan government released more than 5600 prisoners as demanded by the Taliban as the precondition to start talks.  The demand came during a visit by US special peace envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad to the region. Khalilzad also warned, in a tweet, that the window to achieve political settlement won’t stay open forever. 

Since September 12, both the Afghan government and the Taliban have been negotiating in Doha but there is no end to deadlock over the procedural rules needed to kick start broader consultations to end the 42 years of long wars in Afghanistan. Since the initial consultations between the Taliban and the Afghan contact groups started on September 12, Afghanistan has witnessed a dramatic spike in violence in the country. 

Both the Afghan government and the Taliban have rejected the need for a third-party mediator, and the Taliban even said the peace process needs “patience, not a mediator”.