Taliban Guantanamo Bay inmates agree Qatar transfer: Kabul

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Five Taliban Guantanamo detainees have agreed to be transferred to Qatar, a move that would meet a key demand of the hardline Islamists and ease the path to peace talks, Afghan officials said on Sunday.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government had also dropped its opposition to the transfer as it seeks to boost reconciliation efforts, a spokesman for the president said.

The inmates told a visiting Afghan delegation they were willing to be transferred to the Middle East state, and it was now up to the United States whether they were freed, said Aimal Faizi, Karzai's spokesman.

"A delegation (from the) national security council has met with the five prisoners in Guantanamo," Faizi told AFP, adding the inmates were ready to go to Qatar where they could be reunited with their families.

In the US, the Pentagon declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

The Taliban had demanded that the detainees be transferred to Qatar, where the Islamist hardliners plan to set up a political office, and such a move would ease the path to talks with the US aimed at ending the 10-year war.

Kabul initially raised strong objections to the proposal. While they backed the prisoners' release they said they should be transferred directly to Afghanistan.

Analysts said the Taliban officials risked being detained if repatriated to Afghanistan.

But Faizi signalled that Kabul had shifted its position "for the sake of peace", adding that "our responsibility was to make sure they would not be transferred as hostages."

"We don't want Afghan nationals to be transferred handcuffed or as hostages," he said.

Around 20 Afghans, including five members of the former Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, are held in the US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Kabul is also worried about being sidelined in the negotiations towards possible peace between the Taliban and the US, prompting Washington to repeatedly reassure Afghan authorities they will be included in discussions.

The Taliban announced its plan to set up a Qatar office at the start of this year, in a move seen as a precursor to peace talks with Washington.

At the same time, the hardline Islamists demanded the release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay.

The US led an invasion of Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, ousting the hardline Taliban government, and about 130,000 US-led troops are still in the country.

Nearly 10 years since the first handful of detainees arrived at Guantanamo from Afghanistan, 778 terror suspects have passed through the prison.

The prison population has dropped over the years to some 170, but at a painfully slow pace due to complex legal and political wrangling over where to ship inmates known as the "worst of the worst."

Despite declaring within hours of taking office in January 2009 his intention to shut the camp within a year, US President Barack Obama did not achieve that goal and is yet to make good on the pledge.