KABUL — President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday he wanted to bring a Taliban official being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison back to Afghanistan to join in reconciliation talks.
His remarks seconded a request by the government’s High Peace Council calling for the release of the Taliban figure, Mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa, who has been held at the prison on the U.S. military base in Cuba since 2002. Khairkhwa, from Kandahar, reportedly had been the Taliban interior minister and also the governor of Herat province during the Taliban government.
“If he wants to talk, we welcome him,” Karzai said in response to a question at a news conference. “We would talk to him. We would arrange his release.”
U.S. officials declined to comment immediately. But they have expressed reluctance to release Taliban figures held at Guantanamo ever since one high-profile prisoner, Mullah Abdul Quyam Zakir, was turned over to the Afghans and later ended up back with the Taliban, where he rose to second in command.
Karzai suggested that Afghan officials would be able to win Khairkhwa’s release. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy, Kerri Hannan, said, “The United States supports the work of the High Peace Council,” but did not comment on calls to release Khairkhwa.
Efforts to start reconciliation talks with the Taliban are a high priority of Karzai’s government, which last year formed the High Peace Council, whose 70 members include a dozen ex-Taliban officials.
