Taliban offer 3-month ceasefire in return for prisoner release

The spokesman for the government’s negotiating team in Doha said the offer from the armed group was a ‘big demand’.

The Taliban have offered a three-month ceasefire in exchange for the release of thousands of fighters held in prisons, a top Afghan government negotiator said on Thursday, as the armed group seized control of a key border crossing with Pakistan. Nader Nadery, the spokesman for the Afghan government’s negotiating team in the Qatari capital, Doha, said it was a “big demand”. Peace talks between Taliban and Afghan leadership in Doha have been stalled for months. “The Taliban has offered a plan for a three-month ceasefire, but in exchange they have asked for the release of 7,000 of their prisoners and the removal of their leaders from the UN blacklist,” he told reporters in Kabul.