Kabul - The start of secret talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban might have sparked hope among many war-weary Afghans who see negotiations as the only solution to end the conflict, but deep-seated scepticism remains whether the government took the right approach.

The meeting between Afghan government officials and Taliban representatives was held in late September in Mecca in the presence of Saudi King Abdullah, according to several Afghan officials.

While both Afghan government officials and Taliban spokesmen denied any negotiations, officials in attendance confirmed a meeting took place.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai denied holding any talks with the Taliban in Saudi Arabia but said he asked the Saudi king for help. The president, who previously said his government would not negotiate with Taliban leader Mullah Omar, made an about-face on September 30 when he called on Omar to join the peace process.

"Any negotiation with the Taliban should be transparent and not hidden from the public eye," said Fazel Sangcharaki, spokesman for the United National Front Party, a broad, powerful coalition of former and current strongmen, including commanders from the anti-Soviet resistance of the 1980s, former Communist leaders and members of the National Assembly.

The party, which is the main opposition group taking on Karzai's government, "was not invited or consulted by the government regarding any peace talks," Sangcharaki said.

"Such secret talks will damage our national unity, and these kinds of political games to exclude others will be harmful for the people of Afghanistan," he said, suggesting that peace was only possible with all parties involved and negotiations conducted by Afghans inside the country.

The majority of the party members are from non-Pashtun ethnicities while the participants at the Mecca meeting were almost all Pashtuns, the biggest tribe in the country, to which Karzai also belongs.

The party includes the most powerful leaders of Afghanistan's ethnic factions, who plunged the country into a civil war after the fall of the Communist regime in 1992, but also fought the Taliban government for years before helping the US-led military coalition topple the Islamic fundamentalist regime in 2001.

Mohammad Asem, a lawmaker from the northern province of Baghlan, said National Assembly members were not consulted about any peace talks, which were bound to fail "without the will and consent of the Afghan people, who parliament is representing."

Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef - a former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, who was imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for four years and attended the Mecca talks - said the Afghans ate with Abdullah during Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, but stressed "there were no political discussions and there was no Taliban representative."

Another participant at the meeting, Abdul Qayoum Karzai, the Afghan president's elder brother, also said no representatives of the militia was present at the gathering.

However, according to Asharq Al-Awsat, the leading Arabic daily newspaper, attendees also included Mullah Mohamed Tayeb Agha, the spokesman of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, and Mawlawi Abdul Kabir, a member of the Taliban's Council of Ministers and former governor of Nangarhar province.

Citing unknown Afghan officials, it said that the Afghan government delegation was led by Arif Noorzai, a deputy parliament speaker and Mawlawi Arsalan Rahmani, former Taliban official, as well as former foreign minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil.

The calls for peace increased in the past month after NATO and US-led military commanders in Afghanistan admitted that it was not possible to win the insurgency by military means, unless the alliance increases the number of soldiers to maintain the gains of the past seven years following.

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith of the British command in Afghanistan told British media, "We're not going to win this war," adding if they Taliban accept negotiations, "that's precisely the sort of the progress that concludes insurgencies like this."

Top UN envoy in Afghanistan Kai Eide, and General David McKiernan, who commands the NATO-led forces in the country, also joined the chorus to call for a political settlement.

The US government, which plans to send additional 8,000 troops to Afghanistan next year to contain the Taliban-led insurgency, also welcomed the negotiations.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, however, said they would not negotiate with the fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Omar.

Afghan political analyst and former Taliban official, Waheed Mazhda, said the militants would not accept any peace deal, as long as they did not see their leaders in the process.

"Mullah Omar is the supreme leader of the Taliban, and it is impossible to negotiate with them without his presence and his blessings," he said.

With a lingering strategic stalemate on the military front and the lack of will by NATO countries to send more troops, Afghanistan and its western allies have no option left, but to opt for a political settlement with the Taliban, including their leaders, Mazhda concluded. (dpa)