A clutch of the “most dangerous” Taliban prisoners has been transferred from prison in Afghanistan over the objections of key American allies in an effort to jumpstart peace talks this weekend.
“None of us are happy about the release of prisoners that committed violence or against our forces, but we want to keep the big picture in mind, unhappy as we are,” said Zalmay Khalilzad, a State Department special representative, on the eve of a landmark meeting in the peace process.
Khalilzad, who brokered the United States-Taliban peace deal earlier this year, defended the release of six men as part of a broader prisoner swap that functioned as a “confidence-building measure” between the Taliban and the U.S.-backed central government.
The removal of three men variously responsible for the murder of French and Australian citizens, however, drew objections from Paris and Canberra and outraged the families of the fallen.
“We have now come to a rotten impasse when the Trump administration is more concerned about pandering to the wishes of a terrorist group than the sacrifice of soldiers and families of its longstanding ally,” Hugh Poate, the father of murdered Australian Pvt. Robert Poate, told local media.
Poate’s son was killed in 2012 with two other off-duty Australian soldiers “in a cold-blooded crime of betrayal” by an Afghan deserter, known as Hekmatullah, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defense Minister Linda Reynolds said in a statement Friday as the country protested the deserter’s transfer from Afghan custody to Qatari custody.
“Australia has steadfastly maintained that Hekmatullah must not be released,” the statement continued. “We will continue to advocate our position robustly, wherever he is being held. Justice and peace are not incompatible. Both have a place in peace arrangements.”
France likewise released a statement that “reiterate[d] its strongest opposition to the release” of two men who murdered 29-year-old Bettina Goislard, a French national who worked in Afghanistan for the United Nations’s main refugee agency.
“The peace negotiations, which France is ready to support, must take into account the interests and rights of the victims of conflict and terrorism in Afghanistan,” France’s foreign affairs ministry said. “These are the conditions necessary for that country’s long-term stabilization and the security of all.”
How the prisoner release influences the relationship between the U.S. and France and Australia remains unknown.
“How would we feel if another country, said, ‘Yeah, these guys killed Americans, but just go along with it?’” a former senior Trump administration official said. “People have long memories, and this will be one of those chits … at some point, on some issue, where they’ll be sure to remind Washington that this was something … that they didn’t want to do.”
Khalilzad suggested that France and Australia would understand that the release was intended for the greater good in order to initiate the peace talks between the Taliban and the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, Afghanistan, which are set to begin Saturday.
“That logic was compelling, and none of the countries that are concerned have made this as an issue that this will affect relations with Afghanistan,” he said. “They don’t like it, but at the same time, they understand that this was an Afghan decision, a decision that was difficult but necessary, they felt in the end, to start intra-Afghan negotiation and to give peace a chance.”
