Newly freed Taliban prisoners leave Pul-e Charkhi prison in Kabul on August 13.
But those talks have been postponed indefinitely after Kabul abruptly halted the release of the remaining inmates, some of whom have been accused or convicted of deadly attacks on Afghans and foreigners since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
At the same time, the Afghan government has accused the Taliban of failing to free all government soldiers in its custody, a claim rejected by the insurgents.
The prisoner swap is supposed to involve a total of 5,000 Taliban militants and some 1,000 Afghan soldiers.
Meanwhile, some foreign governments are strongly urging Kabul not to release specific Taliban inmates because they were involved in killing their citizens on Afghan soil.
A senior Afghan official has also blamed the Taliban for an assassination attempt on a member of the government's peace-negotiating team.
Some Afghan and foreign observers say President Ashraf Ghani could be deliberately delaying a process that has undermined his administration and boosted the legitimacy of the Taliban. "The Afghan government has cited several justifications in order to stall this prisoner release in the past week alone," said Andrew Watkins, a senior analyst for Afghanistan at the International Crisis Group.
Comment: Despite the delays, here's what Ghani had to say today: