No commitment to release Taliban prisoners: Afghan President

The agreement was signed between Washington and the Afghan militants in Doha, Qatar, on Saturday, after at least 10 rounds of talks over the past 18 months. The accord was signed by US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban political chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

As a condition for talks with the Afghan government, the deal noted that 5,000 Taqliban prisoners would be freed in exchange for up to 1,000 Afghan government captives by March 10.

But Afghan President Ashraf Ghani told reporters at a news conference in Kabul on Sunday that his government had no commitment to release the Taliban prisoners as stated in the deal.

The Taliban's demand for the release of its prisoners from Afghan jails cannot be a precondition to direct talks with the government, Ghani added.

Under the deal, the US has agreed to cut down the number of its troops in Afghanistan from 13,000 to 8,600 within 135 days of signing the deal.

Washington has also agreed to withdraw all its forces from the country in 14 months provided that it sees no hostilities from the Taliban.

However, representatives from the Kabul government were not present during the Doha deal and a meeting was held in Kabul, where the Afghan president and the Pentagon chief issued a joint declaration. The NATO chief was also present.

The joint declaration calls on the sides to work together to reach a comprehensive and sustainable peace deal to end the war in Afghanistan for the benefit of all Afghans.

According to the declaration, the peace deal will guarantee to prevent the use of Afghan soil by any international terrorist groups against the US security; will present a timeline for the withdrawal of all US and NATO forces; will secure a political settlement through intra-Afghan dialog; and will enforce a permanent ceasefire.

NATO, despite not being part of the agreement, will conform with the future peace deal and gradually pull its troops out of the country.

Despite its strong willingness to restore peace across the war-torn country, Afghanistan’s government has voiced Kabul's opposition to some articles of the Doha deal. The Taliban, in response, claims that it does not recognize the legitimacy of the Kabul government.

US forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 under the pretext of the so-called war on terror, overthrowing the Taliban regime in Kabul. Since the US invasion of Afghanistan, Washington has spent more than $2 trillion waging war on the impoverished country, leaving more than 2,400 American soldiers and tens of thousands of Afghan civilians dead.