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KABUL. – The Afghan president is angry at being kept in the dark over a deal to free five Taliban leaders in exchange for a captured US soldier, and accuses Washington of failing to back a peace plan for the war-torn country, a senior source said yesterday.
The five prisoners were flown to Qatar on Sunday as part of a secret agreement to release Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who left Afghanistan for Germany on the same day.
The only known US prisoner of war in Afghanistan, Bergdahl had been held captive for five years.
“The president is now even more distrustful of US intentions in the country,” said the source at President Hamid Karzai’s palace in Kabul, who declined to be identified.
“He is asking: How come the prisoner exchange worked out so well, when the Afghan peace process failed to make any significant progress?”
Karzai has backed peace talks with the hardline Islamist Taliban movement, which ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001 and has fought a bloody insurgency since then against US-led forces in the country.
But they have come to little so far, and the group has moved swiftly to dash hopes that the prisoner swap would rekindle peace talks between it and the Afghan government.
“It won’t help the peace process in any way, because we don’t believe in the peace process,” Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said on Sunday.
The palace official also said Karzai was worried about further deals being cut without his knowledge.
“It indicates that other deals could be negotiated behind the president’s back,” he said.
Karzai has yet to comment publicly on a swap that is bound to deepen the mistrust of a leader who has been fiercely critical of the US administration in recent years.
He is due to step down as president later this year, but many Afghans believe Karzai will continue to wield considerable influence over policy from behind the scenes. – Reuters.
Online Reporter
Charles Duri