Summary Reports surfaced this week that Faqir had been arrested by Afghan security officials .
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan has asked Afghanistan to hand over a senior TTP fighter arrested recently and apparently held as a bargaining chip for a prisoner exchange.
Maulvi Faqir Mohammad is a senior member of Pakistan s Tehreek-e-Taliban faction, which is leading a bloody insurgency against the Pakistani government and its armed forces along the northwest border with Afghanistan.
Reports surfaced this week that Faqir had been arrested by Afghan security officials as he tried to cross the Pakistani border, but Afghan officials have told AFP only that they are still trying to confirm his identity.
However, according to Pakistan s foreign ministry, Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul told his Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar that Faqir had been captured.
"We hope that he would be handed over to Pakistan as soon as possible because he has the blood of many innocent Pakistanis on his hands," ministry spokesman Moazzam Ahmad Khan told reporters on Thursday.
Kabul responded by saying its investigation "into the recent capture of an individual that has been reported in the media is still ongoing" and criticised Islamabad s own record on handing over Afghan Taliban prisoners.
Pakistan says it has released 26 Afghan Taliban prisoners in a move that was initially welcomed as a sign of increasing cooperation between the two countries, whose relations have traditionally been mired in distrust.
Afghan officials believe released prisoners could help persuade the Taliban to enter into peace talks.
But they want other detainees, including former Afghan Taliban deputy leader Abdul Ghani Baradar, handed over to Kabul rather than freed in Pakistan. Security officials say at least some of the released prisoners have returned to the battlefield.
The Afghan foreign ministry said Friday that Pakistan had refused to return prisoners to Afghanistan on the grounds that "there is no prisoner exchange agreement between the two countries".
"The Afghan government still believes that the return of Afghan Taliban prisoners to Afghanistan is in the best interests of a meaningful Afghan peace process," it said in a statement.
"And the Afghan government is prepared to discuss this further with the Pakistani government."
