Taliban end 'fruitless' meetings with Afghan govt over prisoner swap

The Taliban will no longer participate in "fruitless" discussions with the Afghan government over a prisoner swap that had formed a key part of a deal with the US, the insurgents have said.

The Taliban's political spokesman Suhail Shaheen blamed the administration of President Ashraf Ghani for delaying the release "under one pretext or another".

"Therefore, our technical team will not participate in fruitless meetings with relevant sides starting from tomorrow," Shaheen, who is based in Doha, said in a tweet first sent in Pashto around midnight Tuesday Afghanistan time.

The two foes have been holding talks in Kabul since last week to try to finalise the prisoner swap that was originally supposed to have happened by March 10 and paved the way for "intra-Afghan" peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban.

Matin Bek, a member of the government's negotiating team, said the release had been delayed because the Taliban are demanding the release of 15 "top commanders".

"We cannot release the killers of our people," Bek told reporters on Monday. "We don't want them to go back to the battlefield and capture a whole province."