Pompeo visits Afghanistan, discusses peace process with president

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo paid an unannounced visit to Afghanistan on Monday and held talks with Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, said a statement of Presidential Palace released here.

In the meeting held at the Presidential Palace, matters of mutual interests including the Afghanistan peace process, regional consensus towards peace talks, the security and political situation of Afghanistan were discussed, the statement added.

The visit took place amid a stalemate in peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, as well as an on-going political turmoil in the conflict-battered country.

Nearly five months after the voting, Afghanistan's election commission on Feb. 18 declared Ghani winner of the presidential election, but his rival Abdullah Abdullah disputed the result.

Ghani and Abdullah have both taken oath as president of Afghanistan on March 9.

Pompeo is expected to meet Abdullah later in the day.

Dispute between Ghani and Abdullah over the election result in the 2014 election had been solved with the formation of a national unity government with Ghani as president and Abdullah as chief executive.

The United States and the Taliban outfit inked a peace deal on Feb. 29 after rounds of marathon talks to end America's longest war in its history, paving the way for the withdrawal of thousands of U.S. troops and facilitating intra-Afghan dialogues to find a negotiated settlement to Afghanistan's lingering crisis.

Under the agreement, the United States was bond to secure the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners from Afghan government's jails within 10 days after signing the peace deal to facilitate direct talks between the Taliban group and the Afghan government.

In return for the prisoners' release, the Taliban agreed to set free 1,000 Afghan security personnel who are in the armed group's custody.

However, the Afghan government refused the mass release of the Taliban detainees, demanding the Taliban group to observe ceasefire and initiate talks with the government ahead of the detainees' release, but the Taliban rejected the condition.