KABUL - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday he had asked the king of Saudi Arabia to help engage the Taliban militia in peace talks, though the discussions have not yet started.
The US-backed Karzai said Afghan envoys had made repeated trips to the Gulf kingdom and to neighbouring Pakistan to facilitate the negotiations.
"Since two years I have been sending letters and messages to the Saudi Arabian king and requested him, as a world Muslim leader, to help us bring peace in Afghanistan," Karzai told a news conference.
"The preparation for negotiations is going on, on a daily basis. Our envoys travelled many times to Saudi Arabia and to Pakistan, but the discussions have not started yet. We hope that it happens soon."
Karzai's comments come two days after Britain's Observer newspaper reported the Taliban were in secret negotiations brokered by Saudi King Abdullah to end the conflict in Afghanistan.
In September 2007, the Afghan president said for the first time that he was ready to talk to Taliban supremo Mullah Mohammed Omar, after earlier saying that he wanted negotiations with lower-level militant leaders.
Karzai made a fresh appeal on Tuesday for Omar and others to come to the negotiating table.
"We are trying so that our brothers, those Afghan Taliban who have taken the gun against their people and country, and their leader Mullah Omar, can return back to their country and work for peace," Karzai said.
Afghan officials say Omar is hiding in Pakistan, a claim Islamabad denies.
Omar issued a statement on the Internet on Tuesday offering international troops safe passage out of Afghanistan if they withdraw. US-led forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to topple the Taliban regime.
Previous efforts to negotiate with the Taliban have been fraught with difficulties, not least where foreign powers have been involved.
Afghan claims that top European officials held secret talks with the Taliban caused embarrassment for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown last December, with Brown previously having ruled out all such negotiations.
Karzai has also criticised Pakistan for striking peace deals with militant leaders in its tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.
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