WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama, who personally announced the exchange of five high-profile Taliban prisoners for an American soldier last week, hopes the deal could open the door for peace talks.

“It is our hope Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl’s recovery could potentially open the door for broader discussions among Afghans about the future of their country by building confidence that it is possible for all sides to find common ground,” Mr Obama said. But he also said that Washington was “mindful of the challenges” confronting such talks.

In a statement issued by his office, the president said the United States remained committed to supporting an Afghan-led reconciliation process as “the surest way to achieve a stable, secure, sovereign, and unified Afghanistan”.

The Taliban freed Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for five of their detainees from the Guantanamo US prison camp. The detainees would be required to remain in Qatar, which brokered the deal, for at least a year to ensure they don’t return to Afghanistan and resume fighting.

US Secretary of State John Kerry also stressed the need for intra-Afghan talks while commenting on Sgt. Bergdahl’s release. “The United States will continue to support steps that improve the climate for conversations between Afghans about how to end the bloodshed in their country through an Afghan-led reconciliation process,” he said.

US Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel, who visited the US military base at Bagram on Sunday, went a step ahead and hoped that the deal could even lead to a greater peace agreement.

“It could, it might, and we hope it will present an opening,” Mr Hagel said. “Maybe this will be a new opening that can produce an agreement.”

But commentators, appearing on various US television channels, warned not to expect too much from the deal. They pointed out that the distrust between the Taliban and the Kabul government was still so strong that the Americans kept Kabul out of the loop while negotiating the trade-off.

In a press talk on Sunday evening, Secretary Hagel confirmed that Washington kept Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the dark about the prisoner swap.

In a separate statement, Secretary Kerry said that he telephoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai to “brief him on this development” only after Sgt. Bergdahl had already been freed.

“This was an operation, I think as everyone recognises, that had to be very closely held,” Mr Hagel said. “Only very, very few people knew about this operation. We didn’t want to jeopardise any leaks.”

Published in Dawn, June 3rd, 2014