**A delegation from the second largest militant group in Afghanistan has met government officials in Kabul with a plan for peace talks.**Hezb-e-Islami is one of three insurgent groups in Afghanistan - and is separate to the Taliban. It has issued a “peace plan” for resolving the conflict.
The delegation is headed by Qutbuddin Helal, a former prime minister and deputy to warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
The group has battled Nato and Afghan forces in Afghanistan’s east and north.
Hezb-e-Islami and the Taliban have previously been allied in their opposition to Afghanistan’s central government and the presence of foreign forces.
But earlier this month, officials said that at least 60 militants were killed in fighting between the Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami in Baghlan province in northern Afghanistan.
Reports said they had clashed over control of local villages and taxes.
“I can confirm that a delegation of Hezb-i-Islami … is in Kabul with a plan and has met with the president,” President Karzai’s spokesman, Waheed Omer, is quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying.
Correspondents say that Mr Hekmatayar is a highly controversial figure.
Hezb-e-Islami has been seen as a serious threat in the past. Along with the Taliban, it has been blamed for a great deal of insurgent violence in Afghanistan.
But in March 2007, Mr Hekmatyar offered to negotiate with the government.
He was one of the main recipients of US military aid during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, but was later vilified for his part in the fighting among mujahideen factions which killed more than 25,000 civilians in the early 1990s, correspondents say.
A supporter of Osama Bin Laden in 2003, he was labelled a terrorist by the United States.
On Friday the UN’s former envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, strongly criticised Pakistan’s recent arrests of high-ranking Afghan Taliban leaders. Mr Eide told the BBC the arrests had completely stopped a channel of secret communications with the UN.