State Department spokesperson Ned Price stated that the Taliban in Afghanistan have released two American citizens in what appears to be a “goodwill gesture,” and that they will soon be reunited with their loved ones.
Price said on Tuesday at a daily press briefing that Washington was still talking to the Taliban about the need to release any US citizens held in Afghanistan, but he refused to say who they might be or how many people might be held there.
“We understand that the Taliban did this as a gesture of goodwill. There was no prisoner or detainee swap that included this. “No money was exchanged,” Ned Price, a spokesperson for the State Department, told reporters on Tuesday.
Qatar, which has been a major supporter of US interests in Afghanistan ever since the Taliban took control, received the two Americans after they were released.
Price claimed that he was unable to provide any additional information regarding the two Americans due to confidentiality rules.
CNN stated that one of them was Ivor Shearer, a filmmaker who was detained in August alongside his Afghan producer, whose fate is unknown while filming the scene of a US drone strike that resulted in the death of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri.
‘It’s not lost on us’
The Taliban’s decision to prohibit women from attending universities was widely condemned by the United States, which warned that it would incur costs, and the release came on the same day.
“The incongruity of them giving us a generosity signal on a day where they embrace a motion like this to the Afghan public, it’s not lost on us.” Cost said.
“However, the timing of this is a question for the Taliban themselves.”
Since the Taliban regained power last year when President Joe Biden withdrew US troops, resulting in the demise of the two-decade-old Western-backed government, the United States has repeatedly criticized the Taliban’s track record.
In any case, the Biden organization said that the Taliban were to a great extent supportive during the takeover in letting out US residents.
Source: TRT World
