PAKISTAN has released its most senior Afghan Taliban detainee Abdul Ghani Baradar, a senior official told AFP, in a move welcomed by Kabul who hope it will encourage peace talks with the insurgents.
Baradar, a one-time military chief often described as the militants' former second-in-command, was the most high-profile detained Taliban commander in Pakistan.
"Yes Baradar has been released," Omar Hamid, a spokesman for Pakistan's interior ministry told AFP, without elaborating on the circumstances of the release.
Afghanistan's High Peace Council (HPC) welcomed the release and thanked Pakistan's government.
"We welcome his release. And we thank the government of Pakistan that showed goodwill and answered positively to the request of Afghanistan government," Mohammad Esmail Qasimyar, senior member of HPC, told AFP.
"Baradar is someone who has always been eager to join peace negotiations, and we hope he joins peace talks soon. We are optimistic about it, he is still an influential figure, and the Taliban still respect him," Qasimyar said.
Pakistan's foreign ministry on Friday said that Baradar's release would facilitate Afghanistan's reconciliation process with the Taliban as a NATO combat mission there winds down.
However, the Taliban's spokesman in Afghanistan, Zabihullah Mujahid said they could not yet confirm the move.
"We only heard through the media that Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar will be released. We have not received any official confirmation about his release," Mujahid told AFP in Kabul.
The Afghan government has long demanded that Islamabad free Baradar, whose arrest in January 2010 saw Pakistan accused of sabotaging initiatives to bring peace in war-torn Afghanistan.
He was arrested in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi, reportedly in a secret raid by CIA and Pakistani agents, in an operation that was described as a huge blow to the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan until a US-led invasion in 2001.
At the time of his detention, Baradar was reported to have been the Taliban's second-in-command, the right-hand man of the supreme commander Mullah Omar.
He was the most senior member of the Taliban held after US-led troops invaded Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, bringing down the Islamist regime.
His release brings to 34 the number of Taliban detainees that Pakistan has freed since last year, in what Afghan officials hope will encourage peace talks with Taliban insurgents.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai had asked Pakistan to help open direct dialogue between his government and the Taliban, who consider Karzai an "American puppet" and have refused to hold discussions with his government.
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