It will be clear next week when talks with the Taliban will start, President Ashraf Ghani has said.

In an interview with national broadcaster RTA aired on Wednesday, Ghani said that he had asked institutions to finalize by next week Taliban prisoners that could be released.
He also said that it was a Taliban should also release all government prisoners they are holding.
Ghani said prisoner releases took a long time because of procedures that involved the prosecutors, intelligence agency and the prisons authority approving every single release. He also said that prisons’ lists were not computerized, but were in dossiers.
“Based on dossiers, we will reach the last number by Sunday and in the framework of that we will say how many we could release from 5,000 presented and what is the alternative,” Ghani said.
The president said that the initial talks will most likely be held in Qatar. He said that other countries including Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Germany, Norway, China and Russia have expressed interest to host the talks.
He said that people have consensus on bringing peace, but not on its price. “Any peace that comes, it should be acceptable to people.”
The president also said that neither an interim government nor a caretaker government was under consideration. “The Constitution should be respected,” he said.