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| FILE - This image made from video released Wednesday April 7, 2010 by the Taliban via the Site Intelligence Group shows U.S. soldier then Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl. Afghanistan's Taliban says it has suspended "mediation" with the United States to exchange captive U.S. soldier Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five senior Taliban prisoners held in U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay, halting — at least temporarily — what was considered the best chance yet of securing the 27-year-old's freedom since his capture in 2009. In a terse Pashto language statement emailed to the Associated Press on Sunday, Zabihullah Mujahed blamed the "current complex political situation in the country" for the suspension. |
ISLAMABAD
(AP) -- Afghanistan's Taliban said Sunday they had suspended "mediation"
with the United States to exchange captive Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five
senior Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, halting - at least
temporarily - what was considered the best chance yet of securing the
27-year-old soldier's freedom since his capture in 2009.
In
a terse Pashto language statement emailed to The Associated Press,
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid blamed the "current complex
political situation in the country" for the suspension.
A
U.S. official with knowledge of the talks said the cause of the
suspension was not the result of any issue between the United States and
Taliban. He declined to elaborate and spoke on condition of anonymity
because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.
Bergdahl,
of Hailey, Idaho, was last seen in a video released in December,
footage seen as "proof of life" demanded by the U.S. Bergdahl is
believed to be held in the border regions between Afghanistan and
Pakistan.
Mujahid said the indirect talks with
the U.S. had been mediated by Qatar, where the Taliban established a
political office last June. The video of Bergdahl was part of the
negotiations which were to lead to the eventual transfer of the five
Taliban leaders held since 2002 in Guantanamo Bay.
"The
leadership of the Islamic Emirate has decided to suspend the process
for some time due to the current complex political situation in the
country," the statement read. "The process will remain suspended without
the exchange of the prisoners until our decision to resume."
Mujahed
did not elaborate on what "political situation" in Afghanistan led to
the suspension of talks or say when they might resume. Afghanistan is in
the middle of a presidential campaign ahead of an April 5 election.
Two-term President Hamid Karzai cannot run again for office under the
Afghan constitution.
The U.S. State Department
has refused to acknowledge the negotiations, but the U.S. official
previously told the AP that indirect talks were underway.
In
response to the Taliban statement Sunday, U.S. Embassy spokesman in
Afghanistan Robert Hilton said: "Sgt. Bergdahl has been gone far too
long, however we can't discuss the efforts we're taking to obtain his
return."
Col. Tim Marsano, spokesman for the
Idaho National Guard, said he spoke Sunday with Bergdahl's family and
said they declined to comment further.
"The family has no more words," Marsano said.
Efforts
at a swap are also seen as a concession to Karzai. Washington would
like to see him back away from his refusal to sign a security pact that
is necessary for the U.S. to leave a residual force behind in
Afghanistan. Karzai says he wants Washington to push reconciliation
between the Afghan government and the Taliban forward, without offering
specifics.
The five Taliban detainees at the
heart of the proposal are the most senior Afghans still held at the
prison at
the U.S. base in Cuba. Each has been held since 2002.
They include:
-
Mohammad Fazl, whom Human Rights Watch says could be prosecuted for
war crimes for presiding over the mass killing of Shiite Muslims in
Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001 as the Taliban sought to consolidate their
control over the country.
- Abdul Haq Wasiq,
who served as the Taliban deputy minister of intelligence and was in
direct contact with supreme leader Mullah Omar as well as other senior
Taliban figures, according to military documents. Under Wasiq, there
were widespread accounts of killings, torture and mistreatment.
-
Mullah Norullah Nori, who was a senior Taliban commander in the
northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif when the Taliban fought U.S. forces in
late 2001. He previously served as a Taliban governor in two northern
provinces, where he has been accused of ordering the massacre of
thousands of Shiites.
- Khairullah Khairkhwa,
who served in various Taliban positions including interior minister and
as a military commander and had direct ties to Mullah Omar and Osama
bin Laden, according to U.S. military documents. His U.S. lawyers have
argued that his affiliation with the Taliban was a matter of
circumstance, rather than ideology, and that he had backed away from
them by the time of his capture. His lawyers also have argued that he
was merely a civil servant and had no military role, though a judge said
there was enough evidence to justify holding him at Guantanamo. His
lawyers have appealed.
- Mohammed Nabi, who
served as chief of security for the Taliban in Qalat, Afghanistan, and
later worked as a radio operator for the Taliban's communications office
in Kabul and as an office manager in the border department, according
to U.S. military documents. In the spring of 2002, he told interrogators
that he received about $500 from a CIA operative as part of the
unsuccessful effort to track down Mullah Omar. When that didn't pan out,
he says he ended up helping the agency locate al-Qaida members.
