[ed. We don't usually report on current events much here (ie., politics), but this seems like a particularly insightful report on how foreign diplomacy actually works these days.]
The announcement that the U.S. government had secured the release of missing U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and that it was freeing five senior Taliban figures from Guantanamo Bay has been portrayed first and foremost as a prisoner exchange. But the four-year history of secret dialogue that led to Saturday's release suggests that the main goal of each side may have been far more sweeping.
It was about setting the stage for larger discussions on a future peaceful Afghanistan.
As The Associated Press first reported in 2011, talks about releasing the five senior Taliban reach back to at least late 2010, following nearly a decade of war. In the beginning, the name of Bergdahl, who was captured in mid-2009, was not even part of the equation.
The Taliban have sought a prisoner release from the beginning of their contacts with U.S. negotiators, while the U.S. side was looking for confidence-building gestures to keep the conversation going, with the ultimate aim of bringing hostilities in Afghanistan to an end. (...)
In either case, the deal that came about this week after such a long gestation was about more than six men and their respective paths toward captivity and now freedom.
by Kathy Gannon, AP | Read more:
The announcement that the U.S. government had secured the release of missing U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and that it was freeing five senior Taliban figures from Guantanamo Bay has been portrayed first and foremost as a prisoner exchange. But the four-year history of secret dialogue that led to Saturday's release suggests that the main goal of each side may have been far more sweeping.It was about setting the stage for larger discussions on a future peaceful Afghanistan.
As The Associated Press first reported in 2011, talks about releasing the five senior Taliban reach back to at least late 2010, following nearly a decade of war. In the beginning, the name of Bergdahl, who was captured in mid-2009, was not even part of the equation.
The Taliban have sought a prisoner release from the beginning of their contacts with U.S. negotiators, while the U.S. side was looking for confidence-building gestures to keep the conversation going, with the ultimate aim of bringing hostilities in Afghanistan to an end. (...)
In either case, the deal that came about this week after such a long gestation was about more than six men and their respective paths toward captivity and now freedom.
by Kathy Gannon, AP | Read more:
Image: AP uncredited
