Afghanistan can enjoy the important Eid al-Adha holiday this weekend with a 3-day ceasefire between the government and the Taliban, announced Tuesday. The ceasefire was said to be part of negotiating progress between the two factions.
The ceasefire will go into effect Friday, and last for the full weekend. This may be a prelude to intra-Afghan peace talks, with President Ghani suggesting that those talks could happen next week. Those talks have been highly anticipated, but no specific date was set.
This would be the first ceasefire since Ramadan, in which the two sides agreed to a very successful truce. Hopes to extend the truce were not realized, with new fighting and complaints about prisoner releases.
Now that the prisoners have largely been released, there are no obstacles to the talks. If this weekend’s truce goes well, it would be a big confidence builder to start the talks with.
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