Unofficial discussions have been held with Taleban representatives over an extended period, Karzai told CNN’s “Larry King Live” in an interview to be broadcast Monday.

“We have been talking to the Taleban as countryman to countryman,” Karzai said. “Not as a regular official contact with the Taleban with a fixed address, but rather unofficial personal contacts have been going on for quite some time.”

Afghan presidential spokesman Waheed Omar said it was not the first time Karzai had acknowledged talks, saying both the president and his office have repeatedly confirmed unofficial discussions.

“He has talked about it in the past as well. It’s not hidden from anyone,” Omar said. The president’s office previously confirmed there were informal talks with different levels of Afghan Taleban over the past couple of years.

“We have said that there have been contacts in the past, initiated sometimes by the government, sometimes by the armed opposition,” Omar said. He said these have been through intermediaries.

NATO’s top commander in Afghanistan — Gen. David Petraeus — has also said the military coalition was aware of overtures made by Taleban insurgents at the highest levels to the Afghan government.

The drumbeat about talks comes as support for a drawn-out military push in Afghanistan is waning in the United States and with other NATO allies as the war enters its 10th year.

Sending thousands more US troops this summer to the country’s south has yet to show significantly increased security in the Taleban heartland and violence has risen countrywide in recent months.

The nine-year war has inflicted a mounting toll on Afghan civilians. A UN report said more than 1,200 Afghans died and nearly 2,000 were wounded between January and June this year.

The Afghan government says it hopes to make talks more structured with a “peace council” that will aim for formal talks with insurgent groups. On Sunday, former President Burhanuddin Rabbani was named chief of the council. Rabbani was one of a group of mujahedeen leaders who fought the Soviets in the 1980s. He was Afghanistan’s president between 1992 and 1996, when he was ousted by the Taleban.

Omar said the panel should become the conduit for formal talks.

“We hope that the signals that have been sent from the different representatives of the Taleban, and the kind of contact, direct and indirect, from the past will materialize into substantive talks led by the High Council of Peace,” Omar said.

Publicly, the Taleban have said they won’t negotiate until foreign troops leave the country, yet many Taleban leaders have reached out directly or indirectly to the highest levels of the Afghan government, he said.