Taliban withdraw negotiators from prisoner exchange talks

<p>Discussions between the Afghan government and the Taliban over a possible prisoner exchange have broken down following the&nbsp;withdraw&nbsp;of Taliban negotiators.</p> <p>Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for Taliban told reporters that this withdrawal was caused by “intentional delays in the release of our prisoners”.</p> <p>As part of these discussions, both the Taliban and Afghanistan were set to release an approximate 6,000 prisoners in total.</p> <p>The on-going difficulties over peace negotiations follow the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, statement that the US would cut aid to Afghanistan by $1 billion dollars. He has called on Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani and former chief executive Abdullah Abdullah&nbsp;to end their political dispute over the September elections.</p> <p><strong>Read more here:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tamilguardian.com/content/taliban-prisoner-exchange-delayed">Taliban prisoner exchange delayed</a></strong></p> <p><strong>Read more at <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-afghanistan-taliban/taliban-reca…">Reuters.</a></strong></p>