The Taliban offered to free a U.S. soldier held captive since 2009 in exchange for five prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, while Afghan President Hamid Karzai eased his opposition Thursday to joining planned peace talks. The idea of releasing some of the Taliban's most senior operatives has been controversial over fears they would simply return to the battlefield. The proposal to trade U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for the Taliban detainees was made by senior Taliban spokesman Shaheen Suhail in response to a question during an exclusive phone interview with The Associated Press from his newly opened political office in Doha, the capital of the Gulf nation of Qatar. The prisoner exchange is the first item on the Taliban's agenda before even opening peace talks with the U.S., said Suhail, a top Taliban figure who served as first secretary at the Afghan Embassy in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad before the Taliban government's ouster in 2001. -- SPA 20:43 LOCAL TIME 17:43 GMT تغريد
