Ross Wilson, the US chargé d’ affaires said the Taliban is expecting the release of another 7000 of its prisoners by mid-December as part of the US-Taliban agreement, TOLOnews reported. 

Wilson said, “The specific provision relating to another 7,000 Taliban prisoners is contained in the US-Taliban agreement.” He said, under the agreement signed on February 29, they are expecting some progress on the prisoner release by mid-December. 

The US-Taliban deal has four segments and all of them are interconnected to each other. Wilson said you can’t just take out one and say that this one needs to adhere without other steps being adhered to. 

He also stressed the importance of unity and consensus among republic leaders, saying the leaders need to rise above the narrow domestic political, ethnic interest to make consistent progress in talks.

Significantly, his statement came after the Afghan leaders held their first meeting of the High Council for National Reconciliation. Earlier the US and other European leaders criticized the Afghan government for failing to operationalize the reconciliation council. 

Meanwhile, in Doha, the Afghan negotiation team and the Taliban met each other for the second consecutive day to discuss the agenda for intra-Afghan talks.