The Taliban's leaders will decide soon about joining talks with the Afghan government, a spokesman said on Friday, after President Hamid Karzai invited them to a peace council as part of efforts to end years of fighting.
On Thursday Karzai spelled-out his plans for a loya jirga -- or assembly of elders and influential Afghans -- to initiate peace talks with the Taliban, and called on the Islamist group's leadership to take part.
"I cannot say a word regarding these peace talks. The Taliban leadership will soon decide whether to take part in these peace talks," Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf said.
The Taliban, ousted from power by US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001 after ruling most of the country since 1996, declined any further comment.
More than 110,000 foreign troops are in Afghanistan, including some 70,000 Americans, struggling to turn the tide on an insurgency which killed record numbers of civilian and foreign troops in 2009.
The United States and its allies would not be involved in the peace council Karzai has mooted.
The West is backing and funding a reintegration plan to lure low-level Taliban fighters away from the insurgency using jobs and cash, an initiative the Taliban have described as a "trick".
