PARIS, Dec 20: Representatives of Afghanistan’s warring factions met here Thursday for two days of landmark talks that diplomats hope would bolster a fledgling peace process in the war-torn country.

For the first time since a US-led bombing campaign drove the Taliban from power in 2001, senior figures in the Islamist movement sat down with officials from the government and other opposition forces for a roundtable discussion on the country’s future that was brokered by a French think tank.

The organisers, the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS), confirmed the closed-door talks had got under way in the town of Chantilly but would not divulge the agenda or other details for fear of compromising a potentially significant confidence-building exercise.

The talks come against a background of accelerating efforts to draw the Taliban and other opponents of President Hamid Karzai into negotiations on how Afghanistan will be run after western troops withdraw at the end of 2014.

The Karzai government has drawn up a roadmap for peace which involves persuading the Taliban and other militant groups to agree on a ceasefire as a prelude to becoming peaceful players in the country’s nascent democracy. As a first step in that direction, Kabul has been attempting to secure the release of top Taliban prisoners held by Pakistan.

To date the Taliban have refused to negotiate with the government, which it regards as a puppet of the United States, and initial discussions with American officials were suspended in March. But the presence here of senior figures Shahabuddin Dilawar and Naeem Wardak has been seen as a sign that the Islamist group is contemplating going beyond exploratory discussions. —Agencies