Loya Jirga meets on release of 400 Taliban

For a second day, a traditional council met in Kabul on Saturday to decide whether to release a final 400 Taliban prisoners, the last hurdle to negotiations between Afghanistan’s political leadership and the Taliban.

The Kabul-Taliban negotiations are seen as a critical step toward lasting peace in Afghanistan and a roadmap to what the country might look like after decades of war, with the Taliban joining the political mainstream.

They would follow a peace deal the insurgents signed with the United States earlier this year and would decide what constitutional changes would be made in a post-war Afghanistan, and how the rights of women and minorities would be protected.

On Saturday, Abdullah Abdullah, the council's chairman and head of the Afghan High Council for National Reconciliation, said that while discussion "happened in a friendly environment", there are still concerns over the release of prisoners.

Meanwhile the Taliban have rejected the meeting of the council of elders, known as Loya Jirga, claiming it had no legal status.

Since the US-Taliban deal in February, the Taliban have not attacked American and NATO troops, but have continued to wage war on Afghan security forces.

The US and NATO have also begun withdrawing some troops in line with the agreement.

The deal calls on the Taliban to guarantee that Afghanistan will not be used as a staging ground for attacks on the United States or its allies.

The withdrawal of US and NATO troops hinges on the Taliban meeting those commitments and not on a positive outcome to negotiations between the Taliban and Kabul's political leadership.

The deal also called on Kabul to free 5,000 Taliban while the insurgents were to free 1,000 government and military personnel.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has so far freed all but 400 of the Taliban prisoners, insisting on a traditional council to decide their release, saying their crimes were too serious for him to decide on alone.