<span style="color: #222222;">Afghanistan government has released three prominent Taliban figures in an effort to get the insurgents to free an American and an Australian professor they abducted in 2016.<br />'' <br />'' President Ashraf Ghani announced this in a press event broadcast live on state television. He told the nation that the conditional release was a very hard decision he felt he had to make in the interest of the Afghan people.<br />'' <br />'' The announcement comes at a sensitive time for him, as President Donald Trump halted talks between the US and the Taliban in September, after a particularly deadly spate of Taliban attacks.<br />'' <br />'' Also, the future of Mr Ghani's government is in doubt as the results from the September 28 presidential elections have not been released yet. Preliminary results are expected on 14th of this month.<br />'' <br />'' The three members of the Taliban-linked Haqqani network being released are Anas Haqqani, Haji Mali Khan and Hafiz Rashid.</span><br />''