ISLAMABAD/KABUL: Senior Pakistani Army, Afghan and diplomatic officials said on late Thursday the Afghan Taleban had signalled they were willing to open peace talks with Kabul.

The reports raised hopes for a breakthrough in peace efforts following the withdrawal of most US-led troops last year, and of a boost for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

The renewed push for negotiations appeared to be driven by evolving relationships between Afghanistan, Pakistan and China, which recently offered to help broker talks.

A senior Pakistani military official said Pakistan’s Army Chief Gen. Raheel Sharif told Ghani during a visit this week the Taleban were willing to begin negotiations as early as March.

Sharif had held talks with Ghani on boosting security and continuing operations against Taliban militants, the Pakistani military said. The two men had also praised improved relations between the neighbors, which have seen a series of high-level talks.

“They have expressed their willingness and there will be progress in March. But these things are not so quick and easy,” the official, who is close to the army chief, told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“But there are very clear signals ... and we have communicated it to the Afghans. Now many things are with the Afghans and they are serious.”

Taleban representatives including official spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid cast doubt on the possibility of talks, saying they still opposed negotiations. The group has repeatedly said it will talk to the US but not the Kabul government.

A senior member of the Afghan Taleban said by telephone from Qatar their negotiators would hold a first round of talks with US officials in Qatar on Thursday.

But US officials in Washington denied the US was holding talks, direct or indirect, with the Taleban.

A White House spokeswoman said the US remained supportive of an Afghan-led reconciliation process in which the Taleban and the Afghan government engaged in talks.



US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the US had not held indirect talks with the Taleban since May 2014, when it worked through Qatar to free Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. The US soldier, who disappeared from his base in Afghanistan in 2009, was freed in a controversial prisoner swap for five inmates from the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

A senior aide to Ghani, who declined to be identified, said the Afghan government had asked that talks be held in Beijing, a nod to China’s recent efforts to help broker an end to the war.

Ghani himself has not directly commented on the possibility of talks but promised transparency.

“I will not conduct any negotiation in secret from my people,” he was quoted as saying in a statement.

A later statement said Ghani met members of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council on Thursday, quoting the president as saying: “Now there is a big opportunity for peace in the country.”

A senior diplomat in the region said that venues being considered for the talks included Islamabad, Kabul and Dubai as well as Beijing.

Exactly what might have pushed some Taleban towards talks was not clear, but the Afghan war is grinding on with no clear winner.

With the departure of most US and other foreign troops, Afghan security forces are struggling to defeat the insurgency, while the Taleban have been unable to hold much territory.

The Taleban are also losing support within Pakistan, which has developed closer relations with Afghanistan since Ghani took power late last year.

Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have long been marred by mistrust. Islamabad has for years been close to the Taleban, as it fretted over the influence of India in Afghanistan. But Ghani has sought to improve ties.

“Afghanistan and Pakistan relations have changed dramatically since President Ghani came to office,” said Barnett Rubin, a senior fellow at the Center on International Cooperation and former US State Department official.

Pakistani Senator Afrasiab Khattak, who comes from Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on the Afghan border, said Ghani’s efforts had led to a commitment by Pakistan to encourage the Taleban to talk, possibly through threatening to end their use of Pakistani soil as a refuge.

“Without sanctuaries, nobody can have sustainable fighting. Those who will talk, will talk. Those who do not agree can face co-ordinated action on both sides of the border,” Khattak said.

Ghani has also lobbied China, which is worried about the spread of militancy in its west, to use its ties with Pakistan to persuade it to press the Taleban to talk.

Pakistan, for its part, is pushing the Taleban to agree to talk in exchange for an Afghan promise to capture and hand over the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Mullah Fazlullah, who is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani Taleban are separate from the Afghan Taleban, although they share the goal of establishing a theocracy.

The Kabul diplomat warned that any talks might hinge on the Afghan Taleban’s reclusive leader, not seen in public since 2001.

“The final decision is still upon Mullah (Mohammad) Omar ... The Taleban leadership is consulting him,” the diplomat said.