UN envoy meets Afghan militant group on possible peace deal

AFP - The top UN envoy for Afghanistan met Thursday with delegates from the country's second-biggest militant group, who are in Kabul for talks on a possible peace deal, the UN mission said.
  
Staffan de Mistura, the special UN representative in Afghanistan, met with delegates from Hezb-e-Islami, headed by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is black-listed as a terrorist by the United Nations and United States.
  

Who's who in the Afghan insurgency

"The special representative listened to their points and indicated that their visit in Kabul and the ongoing discussions with Afghan authorities further underscored the importance of Afghan-led dialogue in order to bring stability to this country," a UN statement said.
  
Hezb-e-Islami delegates had already met President Hamid Karzai earlier this week and handed him a peace proposal, his office said on Monday.
  
The UN statement said de Mistura's talks with the delegation took place "in consultation with President Hamid Karzai." It gave no further detail.
  
Karzai has been trying to bring militants in from the cold in a reconciliation programme aimed at quelling the eight-year-war. The plan gained international backing at a conference in London last year.
  
The Taliban, who were ousted from government in a US-led push in 2001, are the biggest militant group battling Karzai's government and trying to force the more than 120,000 US and NATO troops out of Afghanistan.
  
The Taliban leadership have publicly refused any talks with the Western-backed Karzai and demand all international troops leave the country.
  
The United States accuses Hekmatyar -- a former prime minister -- of carrying out attacks alongside the Taliban and of being allied to Al-Qaeda.
  
Hezb-e-Islami, known in the 1980s as a major anti-Soviet resistance force, had also said it would only hold peace talks when all foreign forces quit Afghan soil, but has shown more willingness to re-enter the political process.