KABUL: Kabul and Washington reaffirmed on Wednesday that they seek peace with the Taliban despite attacks on a CIA base and the Afghan presidency, repairing a row over the Taliban’s office in Qatar.

US President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai held a 90-minute conference call to try to revive early efforts to start peace talks as US-led Nato troops prepare to withdraw in 2014 after more than 12 years of fighting against the Taliban.

The level of violence still raging in Afghanistan was highlighted when the Taliban launched an assault on Tuesday in the heart of Kabul in which three security guards and all five assailants were killed.

Gunmen and bombers using fake Nato identification attacked an entrance to the Afghan presidential palace and a nearby building known to house a CIA base in one of the most brazen assaults in Kabul since Mr Karzai narrowly escaped assassination in April 2008. Tentative steps towards talks were wrecked last week when a new Taliban office in Qatar provoked anger from Afghanistan and the US because it styled itself as the embassy of a government-in-exile.

Mr Karzai refused to send representatives to Qatar and pulled out of separate talks on a security agreement with the US that would allow Washington to keep some troops in Afghanistan after 2014.

Washington launched an intense diplomatic effort to pacify Mr Karzai, with telephone calls and dispatching US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan James Dobbins for face to face talks.—AFP