ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan said Monday that it had released several prominent Taliban prisoners in an effort to facilitate the peace process in neighboring Afghanistan and help complete the handover of security responsibilities by international forces. 
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said eight Afghan Taliban prisoners were released Monday, including former justice minister Nooruddin Turabi and Mohammad Azeem, a former guard of the Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
It said 18 others were released in November at the request of an Afghan High Peace Council delegation during its visit to Islamabad.
The freed detainees did not include former deputy leader Abdul Ghani Baradar, arrested in Karachi in 2010. The release of Baradar and other Taliban leaders has been a longstanding demand of President Hamid Karzai's government, which believes their freedom would help persuade Taliban leaders to join the sluggish peace process.
The release of prisoners reflects Islamabad's readiness to promote peace in Afghanistan amid concerns that civil war and strife in that nation after the US troop exit scheduled for 2014 would have perilous consequences for Pakistan.