Ahead of its pullout from Afghanistan by the year-end, the United States is planning to resume talks with the Taliban in a bid to secure the freedom of a lone American soldier in captivity by offering to protectively release five Taliban prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay.
Citing current and former US officials, The Washington Post reports that the Obama administration plans to resume talks with the Taliban on its exchange offer to secure the release of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, captured in Afghanistan in 2009 and now thought to be held in Pakistani by the Haqqani network.
Although the exchange offer has been on the table for more than two years, Washington is now reportedly willing to “sweeten” the deal with the release of all five Taliban men simultaneously instead of the earlier plan to move them out in ones and twos that was resisted by the Taliban.
Under the US scheme, which has not yet been formally laid out, the five Afghan Taliban detainees would be released to protective custody of the Qatari Government in Doha, the Post reported. Making it clear that the US authorities are eager to get the soldier back, Pentagon press secretary, Rear Adm. John Kirby, has been quoted as saying:
“He’s been gone too long. We want him back. We’ve never stopped trying to bring that about. He’s never far from anyone’s mind here.” A video intercepted by the US authorities last month was said to be the first evidence seen by Pentagon officials that the 27-year-old Bergdahl was alive.
Bergdahl was serving at an Afghan base near the border with Pakistan in a Taliban stronghold when he went missing on June 30, 2009. While a massive manhunt launched by the US military at that time proved to be of little avail, the Taliban announced his capture and offered to release him in exchange for $1 million and the release of 21 Afghan prisoners.