Afghanistan freed a U.S. citizen on Sunday, the State Department and Afghanistan’s foreign ministry said in separate statements, weeks after the Taliban announced an agreement with the Trump administration on prisoner exchanges.
“The United States welcomes home U.S. citizen Amir Amiry who was wrongfully detained in Afghanistan,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. “While this marks an important step forward, additional Americans remain unjustly detained in Afghanistan.”
The Afghan and U.S. governments both thanked Qatar for its mediating role in the release. The Taliban continue to hold at least three Americans, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of lack of authorization to speak publicly about the matter.
The Taliban have seldom communicated on the arrests of foreign citizens, and it remained unclear why Mr. Amiry was in Afghanistan and why he was detained.
Afghanistan has sought diplomatic openings in an effort to attract investment needed to bolster its battered economy, and to emerge from the international isolation it has faced since the Taliban seized power in 2021.
That has yielded few results so far. Taliban officials were barred from traveling to the United Nations General Assembly last week, and only Russia has recognized the group as Afghanistan’s legitimate authority.
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The post Afghanistan Frees a U.S. Citizen Held in Prison appeared first on New York Times.
