KABUL - Afghanistan's top Muslim clerics urged President Hamid Karzai to push ahead with a proposal for talks with the Taliban that would be mediated by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah.
Calls for negotiations between Afghanistan's government and the Taliban have been mounting as the militant group has stepped up attacks in recent years, despite efforts to defeat them by Afghan and international forces.
In the latest violence, international forces killed 34 militants in two days of clashes in the country's volatile south and east, the U.S. military said Friday.
President Barack Obama has urged the Afghan government to encourage moderate elements of the Taliban to reconcile and Karzai has repeatedly said he is open to talks with top Taliban leaders but has made few apparent moves to start such a process.
However, Karzai has previously asked King Abdullah to facilitate contacts with the Taliban. Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief met with top officials in Afghanistan in January in a move seen by many as part of a quiet effort to open a line of communication.
The leaders of Afghanistan's powerful Muslim clerics' council pressed Karzai in a meeting Friday to push the talks forward, said Faiz Mohammad, a council member from Kunduz province.
They proposed a meeting that would include government and Taliban representatives and also former jihadi leaders, other prominent Afghans and representatives of neighbouring countries, Mohammad said.
Karzai's office issued a statement summarizing the meeting, without saying if it would take any action.
"The government is working for permanent peace with all its power," the statement said.
Saudi Arabia is a leader of the Sunni Muslim world and was one of a handful of countries that recognized the Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s.
Meanwhile, the commander of Canadian troops in Afghanistan said four Canadian soldiers were killed Friday in two separate bombings and eight were wounded.
