The Taliban are willing to work with all Afghan groups to achieve peace, but the problems of Afghanistan can only be solved if foreign troops withdraw from the country, a senior insurgent leader said.
The Taliban have made a strong comeback in the last three years, extending the scale and scope of their insurgency across the south and east and up to the fringes of the Afghan capital.
Repeated calls from Afghan President Hamid Karzai for talks with the Taliban have been rejected by the militants, but the statement from the senior Taliban commander signals a slightly softer stance towards the government while maintaining the customary hard line against the international troop presence.
"We would like to take an Afghan strategy that is shared and large-scale, in consultation with all the Afghan groups, to reach positive and fruitful results," Mullah Mutassim, a former Taliban finance minister and member of the group's political council, told al-Samoud magazine in an interview conducted on Feb. 25.
But, he said, the United States "has to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan as soon as possible, because the real starter of crises and complication of matters is the presence of foreign forces in the country.
"If these forces leave, the problem will be over, the question will be finished, and peace will prevail," he was quoted as saying in the interview translated by the US-based Site Intelligence Group which monitors jihadi websites.
Mutassim is regarded as close to fugitive Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar.
US officials admit they are not winning the war but, they say, neither are the Taliban. A stalemate has been reached with insurgents unable to overcome Nato's military might and foreign troops unable to stop Taliban roadside and suicide bombs.
The United States has some 38,000 troops in Afghanistan alongside some 30,000 troops from 40 other mostly Nato nations.
President Barack Obama last week ordered another 17,000 U.S. troops deployed to try to break the stalemate and has pledged a new strategy in Afghanistan to increase development and at the same time ease regional tensions that contribute to the war.
Reuters