US envoy to Homer Adam Beller said today during a visit to Kabul that the USA will proceed to exchange prisoners with the government of Taliban.
“Adam Beller, regarding the issue of citizens who are imprisoned in Afghanistan and the US, said the two countries would exchange their prisoners,” the Taliban government’s office, Abdul Gianni Baradar, said.
At present, no specific date has been announced for this exchange, which Washington has not yet commented.
At least one American citizen, Mahmund Habibi, is believed to be held in Afghanistan. The US is offering $ 5m pay for any information that will lead to its location, but the Taliban refuses to be involved in its disappearance in 2022.
The State Department considers Habibi’s booking one of the key issues that prevent Washington from considering getting closer relationships with Afghanistan. The Taliban, however, stress that they do not know where he is, three years after he disappeared from Kabul.
Last year, the Taliban rejected a proposal to exchange Habibi with Mohammad Rahim al -Afagani, his alleged assistant Osama bin Laden, the last Afghan holding in Guantanamo’s prison.
In March, another American, George Glezmann, who was held by the Taliban for two years, was released after Beller’s visit to Kabul.
Today, this US official, accompanied by the former US envoy to Afghanistan Zalmai Halilzad, discussed the issue of prisoners with Afghan diplomacy leader Amir Han Mutaki.
Dozens of foreigners have been arrested by the Taliban authorities since August 2021, when they returned to power.
This week Russia announced the repatriation of a Russian ethnographer who was held in Afghanistan for almost two months.
“He was held in Afghanistan by July, accused of various offenses (…) and was released by the Afghan authorities at the request of the Russian side, given friendly relations” between Afghanistan and Russia, the only country in the world that has recognized the authorities.
In July 2024, Kabul had pointed out that he was discussing with Washington the issue of prisoners, and in January two Americans had released in exchange for an Afghan fighter, Han Mohammed, who had been convicted of miners in the US.
The Taliban government reiterates that it wants to have good relations with other countries, mainly with the US.
Today the Afghan Foreign Ministry again called for “the restoration of normal relations” between Washington and Kabul, considering that there were no “unsolved problems in bilateral relations”.
Many countries, such as Pakistan, China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, have kept their embassies open in Kabul after 2021.