成人快手

President Biden has said he had taken some "difficult decisions" to secure the release of Mark Frerichs, a former naval officer who was being held in Afghanistan, where he'd worked for a decade. Mr Frerichs was abducted by the Taliban in 2020 before the Taliban swept back to power. In exchange, Mr Biden granted clemency to Haji Bashir Noorzai, who was serving a life sentence in a US prison on drug smuggling charges since 2005.

Graeme Smith, a senior consultant for the International Crisis Group鈥檚 Asia Program, who focuses on Afghanistan, says this swap "is unfinished business between the US and the Taliban... and now finally that has been taken off the very fraught agenda."

However, how might this change relations with the Taliban moving forward? "The reality is that dealing with the Taliban will not get incredibly easier... this is not the end of the drama when it comes to the Taliban's relationship with the outside world."

(Photo: Haji Bashir Noorzai, a convicted drug trafficker in the United States, attends a ceremony organized by the Taliban government to honor his release, in Kabul, Afghanistan, 19 September 2022. Credit STRINGER/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Show less