President Ashraf Ghani said the Taliban should pursue their political goals through democratic ways such as taking part in the Afghan elections. 

Speaking at a summit to strengthen the global consensus on peace hosted in Kabul, Ghani said that the group could take part in the presidential and parliamentary elections.

Representatives from 19 countries and international organizations including NATO, the United Nations, the European Union had participated in the summit.

President Ghani stressed that the Taliban must be present within the framework of the republican system. Much of the president’s speech focused on global support in Afghanistan’s peace talks. Ashraf Ghani said the government is investigating the release of 1,000 Taliban prisoners from the Taliban.

Meanwhile, Abdullah Abdullah, Chairman of the High Reconciliation Council, also said that the government has boost efforts to finalize the process of releasing prisoners, saying that the first round of intra-Afghan talks would be held in Qatar a week after the completion of the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners. Abdullah stressed that the ceasefire is the main agenda of the first round of talks.

“At the moment as we are well aware, the first round will be held in Doha. The initial understanding is that after the completion of exchange of prisoners, it will be one week after that,” Abdullah said, adding, “There is an understanding about the facilitation that the host country should do the facilitation, but on the details of the facilitation, the two sides needs to agree.”

The head of the High Reconciliation Council says that in the first round of talks between Afghans, the ceasefire will be the main agenda and that important issues will be prioritized. According to Abdullah Abdullah, strategies will be discussed in the negotiations on issues of serious disagreement.

He added, “We need to secure the commitment from the Taliban that it will not be a sort of one of the negotiations, but to secure their commitment, not only for deduction in violence in a comprehensive ceasefire but at the same time for continued engagement and as part of strategy, the first agenda will be ceasefire. How to strategize and prioritize it is important.”

The Taliban’s political bureau, however, accuses the Afghan government of delaying the release of prisoners on the pretext of delaying the start of talks between Afghans, although the office acknowledges that there are only a few Taliban prisoners left to be released until the number of released prisoners reaches 5,000.

“They say we have released 4,000 prisoners, but we say more than 3,000. But if they had released the same thousands of prisoners, negotiations would have started and other prisoners would have been released later. They are creating obstacles on the way of the process,” said Sohail Shahin, a spokesman for the Taliban’s political bureau in Qatar.

 The National Security Council says the Taliban have so far released about half of the 1,000 captured security forces. The council emphasizes that the government has so far released 4,099 Taliban prisoners, but the release of 592 prisoners who have been convicted of serious crimes such as drug trafficking, kidnapping, rape, stoning women, assassination, and other criminal offenses will not happen.