Afghanistan Says U.S. Has Right to Seek Taliban Prisoner Swap

The Afghan government supports U.S. efforts to secure the release of an American soldier thought to be held hostage by the Haqqani insurgent network that is allied with the Taliban, according Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai.

“We have no problem in the U.S. government engaging the Taliban directly to secure that objective,” Mosazai said in an interview yesterday on the sidelines of the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels. He sought to dispel reports that the Afghan government was displeased with U.S. efforts to establish a direct channel in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar to talk to the Taliban about the missing soldier.