Pakistan and Afghanistan agree prisoner release deal

Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed today to repatriate about 400 Pakistanis, held for more than two years in grim Afghan jails for fighting with the Taliban, in exchange for the release of nearly 250 Afghans.

He also praised Pakistan’s efforts in fighting al-Qaida, despite lingering fears of cross-border attacks by insurgents who could sabotage landmark Afghan presidential elections in October.

The planned prisoner exchange follows complaints from a UN human rights expert who said at the weekend that an estimated 725 former Taliban fighters, many of them Pakistanis, are held in “inhuman” conditions in Afghanistan and that there is no legal basis to continue their imprisonment.

But the releases also reflects an upbeat outcome from talks in Islamabad between Karzai and Pakistan’s President General Pervez Musharraf who voiced a “common commitment to stamp out terrorism.”

They said they would improve cooperation in intelligence-sharing and between their security forces.

The 400 Pakistanis to be freed include Taliban fighters detained by the Northern Alliance which helped the United States drive out the Taliban in November 2001. Some 725 of these fighters still languish in a jail near Kabul.

The state Associated Press of Pakistan reported the Pakistanis would be repatriated “within the next few days,” and that Hussain had ordered the release of nearly 250 Afghans held for minor or consular offences.