On April 8th, the Taliban, an insurgent group in Afghanistan, pulled out of prisoner swap talks with the Afghanistan government. The prisoner exchange negotiations were part of the peace deal signed in February 29th. The Taliban accused the Afghanistan government of deliberately delaying the release of insurgent leaders. Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesperson in Qatar, tweeted that "Unfortunately, their (prisoners) release has been delayed under one pretext or another till now. Therefore, our technical team will not participate in fruitless meetings with relevant sides." The Afghanistan government freed 100 Taliban prisoners the next day, but as of April 9th, the Taliban rejected the release saying that they cannot verify who those 100 people are. 

  On February 29th, the Taliban and the United States struck a peace deal. This deal ended 18 years of conflict between them. The Taliban and the U.S. were not at odds from the beginning. In September 1996, the Taliban took over the country, ending the civil war started at the end of the cold war. After that, the Taliban sought to establish an Islamic government through Sharia law. In the period, extreme terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda settled into the country. After the 9.11 attack by Al-Qaeda, the U.lS. launched an attack on the Taliban, which refused to extradite Osama bin Laden, the main culprit behind the attacks. Even after the elimination of bin Laden in 2011, the U.S. military remained in Afghanistan to suppress the Taliban. However, the U.S. failed to completely defeat the Taliban despite as many as 2,440 of military deaths and 2.4 trillion dollars of expenses. As a result, the Trump administration cut a peace deal with the Taliban in Doha, on February 29th this year. 

  The peace agreement included only the Taliban and the U.S., excluding the Afghan government. Under the deal, the Taliban must prevent the use of soil of Afghanistan from any group or individual against the security of the U.S. and its allies. In exchange for it, all foreign forces in Afghanistan must leave within 14 months. In addition, the Taliban has agreed to draw an agreement with the Afghan government to design a future political roadmap for the country, along with a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire. As a confidence-building measure, the U.S. and the Taliban concurred of a prisoner swap between 5,000 Taliban prisoners caught by the Afghan government and 1,000 Afghan soldiers imprisoned by the Taliban. 

  However, the current deal has been beset with problems from the beginning. Prisoner swap, which was agreed to be finished by March 10th, was not completed by April 9th. This is because the Afghanistan government, which was excluded from the treaty, is reluctant to release the prisoners. On the day of the agreement, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani announced that his government had not agreed to a clause set out in the deal. He rather suggested a smaller release of prisoners, which was rejected by the Taliban. In addition, there is a political standoff between Ghani and his rival, Abdullah Abdullah. Although Ghani was elected as an Afghan president, Abdullah, who insists the election was rigged, is forming a parallel government. Such political turmoil is dividing the nation, making it more difficult to implement the agreement. 

  Despite the impasse, the U.S. government is maintaining a firm stance on the matter. President Trump wants to keep his pledge in 2016 to withdraw American troops abroad before the election in 2020. In order to do so, secretary of state Mike Pompeo visited Afghanistan on March 23rd and delivered a message to two leaderships, saying that they should carry out a deal with the Taliban or the president Trump could cut one billion dollars financial support to Afghanistan and pull all U.S. troops out of the country.  

By Jung Sung-Eun, Planning Director

jse7703@pusan.ac.kr