'US holding direct talks with Taliban'

Peace talks are going on with the Taliban. The foreign military and especially the United States itself are going ahead with these negotiations," Reuters quoted President Karzai as saying at a news conference in the capital Kabul on Saturday. 

The US embassy in Kabul, however, declined to comment on Karzai's remarks. 

Meanwhile, Taliban militants have rejected any efforts to engage in peace talks. 

"We have already said this and have repeated it many times. We have no negotiation with the United States and we deny any report as such," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP. 

Karzai's comments come as Der Spiegel magazine revealed in a report last month that Germany was helping to mediate secret, direct talks between the US and the Taliban on German soil. 

The US-based New Yorker magazine also reported in February that the US had begun direct discussions with senior Taliban figures. 

Karzai was speaking the day after the United Nations Security Council agreed to split the international sanctions list for Taliban and al-Qaeda figures into two. 

Karzai's remarks are the first official confirmation of direct contacts between the United States and Taliban militants nearly 10 years after the US led a military invasion of Afghanistan, mainly to take out the Taliban regime in what it boasted as the 'war on terror.' 

Meanwhile, numerous reports have pointed to the fact that the US-led military involvement has indeed intensified terrorism and instability in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. This is while the production and trade of narcotics in the country has also surged to record levels since the US-led occupation began in 2001, raising serious concerns among regional countries, most notably, Iran and Russia. 

US President Barack Obama is facing mounting public pressure to significantly reduce American soldiers in war-battered Afghanistan amid domestic economic woes and persisting US troop casualties in the country.