U.S. in tit-for-tat with Taliban

Members of the Taliban at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could be released as part of a reconciliation effort, officials said. Taliban authorities this week said they were preparing to open a political office in Qatar. In return, British newspaper The Guardian reported, the U.S. government has agreed in principle to release some high-ranking figures in the Taliban from the detention facility at the U.S. Navy's base in Guantanamo Bay. The Guardian reports that the Taliban's former Interior Minister Mullah Khair Khowa and a former governor, Noorullah Noori, are among those considered for release. Washington had said it supported an Afghan-led national reconciliation process. Western authorities have been reviewing a U.N. sanctions list for al-Qaida and Taliban figures to encourage national reconciliation. Afghan President Hamid Karzai in December announced support for engagement with the Taliban. Washington said it supported the measure so long as those members renounce al-Qaida. Michael Semple, a former European envoy in Afghanistan now teaching at Harvard University, said the measure is a meaningful sign of progress for the war-torn country. "There is a long list of things we don't have and there has been no progress on substantive issues," he told the newspaper. "But now there is a certain amount of momentum."