“We want to rebalance the focus we had so far on the military approach,” said Steiner, who chaired the meeting of the International Contact Group (ICG) on Afghanistan and Pakistan at the headquarters of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Jeddah.

“I think there’s nobody who can think, including the Taleban, that there’s a military solution," Steiner said. "It does not suffice because there will be no military solution ... we need to put more emphasis on the political approach. We need to rebalance the focus from military to political.”

The meeting hosted by OIC was attended by more than 40 countries. OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu welcomed the representatives of the event in the opening speech at the meeting. Organizations including the United Nations and the European Union were also represented.

The meeting focused on an upcoming conference in Bonn, Germany in December regarding the political process in Kabul.

Regarding the conflict in Afghanistan, Steiner said there is no “military solution,” but that this holds true for the militants as well.

US special envoy Marc Grossman, who attended the meeting, concurred. “I think that if you say there is no military solution, that is true for everybody,” he said.

Last month, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a speech last month that Washington was “launching a diplomatic surge to move this conflict toward a political outcome that shatters the alliance between the Taleban and Al-Qaeda ...”

The United States has long said there would have to be a political settlement to the Afghan war but insisted that military pressure was needed to bring insurgents to the negotiating table.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Wednesday it could take one to three years to reach a resolution.