US effort to end war in Afghanistan threatened by coronavirus

The coronavirus pandemic that has been ravaging the entire planet now stands to threaten the peace process between the United States and Afghanistan.

The US effort to end the war in Afghanistan, to be precise, will suffer a setback if Taliban and government prisoners die in custody before they can be exchanged.

While the pandemic has grounded other US envoys, Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad last week flew to Doha, where the Taliban have an office, and Islamabad following a March 23 trip by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Doha and Kabul.

"If a good number of prisoners on either side contract the disease or die in prison because of an outbreak, it will be a humanitarian issue and it will make intra-Afghan negotiations that much more difficult," said a source familiar with the matter.

Experts say that the fact that Pompeo and Khalilzad travelled even as the COVID-19 disease spread underscores the depth of Washington's concerns that President Donald Trump's effort to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan could collapse.

This might in turn deprive him of a foreign policy victory to move ahead as far as the November US presidential election is concerned.

THE DEAL

A February 29 US-Taliban deal for a US troop withdrawal after more than 18 years of intervention called for the government to release up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners and the insurgents to free up to 1,000 detainees by March 10.

The Taliban, however, demanded Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's government, which was not a party to that deal, release all 5,000 prisoners at once before negotiations. They have also stepped up attacks on Afghan security forces. Ghani rejected the demand and has begun a phased release of 1,500 prisoners, while the insurgents have freed 40 detainees.

An expert outside of the US government, however, has noted that many countries have freed prisoners because of the disease and said this could be a face-saving way for Ghani and the Taliban to accelerate the releases. This would allow Kabul to cite humanitarian grounds for freeing Taliban detainees.

Afghanistan has recorded nearly 1,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus.

(with inputs from Reuters)