Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai says the United States is holding talks with the Taliban in the first official confirmation of contact between the two sides in nearly ten years of conflict.

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Speaking at a conference in Kabul, Karzai said that “talks with the Taliban had started…also foreign forces, especially the United States, are carrying out the talks themselves”.

The president’s comments came just hours before an attack by militants on a police station in central Kabul which is said to have killed two people.

Afghanistan has been making public attempts to talk to the Taliban for several months in an increased attempt to find a political settlement to the conflict before foreign combat troops prepare to pull out of the country in 2014.

Last year Karzai set up a High Council for Peace to look at the issue. The Council visited Pakistan, seen as a key player in the conflict, last week.

On Friday, the United Nations Security Council agreed to split the international sanctions regime for the Taliban and al-Qaeda in a move to encourage the Taliban to join reconciliation efforts.

Susan Rice, UN envoy for the UN, said the move “sends a clear message to the Taliban that there is a future for those who separate from al-Qaeda, renounce violence and abide by the Afghan constiutuion.”

Earlier this month, US Defense Secreatary Robert Gates said on a visit to Kabul that there could be talks with the Taliban by the end of the year if foreign troops make sufficient gains.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already called on Taliban members to split from al-Qaeda so they can be re-integrated to society.

And US President Barack Obama is due to announce soon the number of American troops who will pull out from July as the process of handing control from foreign to Afghan forces starts.

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