ISLAMABAD: The leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan met in Paris on Monday to discuss ways to resurrect peace talks with Taliban insurgents and to improve relations between the neighbors that soured earlier in the year after a string of militant attacks in Kabul.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s office released a statement saying he had met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on the sidelines of the climate change summit in the French capital.

“Discussions were also held on the resumption of the peace and reconciliation process” aimed at ending the 14-year-old Afghan war, the statement said.

“Both leaders agreed to work with all those who would enter such a process as legitimate political actors, and act, alongside the Afghan government, against those who refuse to take the path of peace.” Pakistan in July hosted the first official talks between the Afghan government and representatives of Taliban insurgents, who are seeking to re-establish their rule that ended with the 2001 US-led military intervention.

However, a second round of talks was canceled after it was revealed that the Taliban’s founder and reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had been dead for two years.

Pakistan accused those who were trying to sabotage the talks of leaking the news.

Meanwhile, The US warned its citizens in Kabul Monday of an “imminent attack” in the city within the next two days, amid renewed official efforts to revive stalled peace talks with the Taliban.

The US Embassy in Kabul urged extreme caution during this period of “heightened threat” but gave no details on potential targets or methods of the planned attack.

“US Embassy Kabul has received credible reports of an imminent attack in Kabul... within the next 48 hours,” it said in an emergency warning posted on its website.

“The security situation in Afghanistan is extremely unstable, and the threat to all US citizens in Afghanistan remains critical,” it added.

Grinding violence in Afghanistan kills hundreds of people each month. The Taliban in September briefly seized a provincial capital for the first time since their ouster, in a major setback for Ghani’s government.

Newly declared Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour has not publicly endorsed a return to the negotiating table, although hopes were raised when he appointed a new team to the movement’s political office in Qatar.

The Afghan government had no immediate comment on Monday’s meeting.

Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan improved in the early days of Ghani’s presidency, but quickly deteriorated after a series of major bombings in the Afghan capital, Kabul, that some blamed on militants based in Pakistan.