Afghan President Hamid Karzai said today that Taliban leaders are seeking peace talks.
Afghan and Western officials accept talks must be held to end the Taliban insurgency that has killed some 5,000 this year.
Mr Karzai told a news conference he has received an increasing number of contact from Taliban figures in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"As a matter of fact only this week, I had more than five or six major contacts, approaches by the leadership of the Taliban trying to find out if they can come back to Afghanistan," he said.
Nato commanders say the Taliban do not have a conventional leadership structure and that some hardliners in the radical Islamist movement may not support the moderates. But talks may help split the Taliban, they say.
"We are willing to talk to those Taliban who are not part of al-Qaeda or the terrorist network," Mr Karzai said.
There has been a steady rise in violence in Afghanistan in the last two years since the Taliban relaunched their insurgency to overthrow the pro-Western government and eject the 50,000 foreign troops from the country.
Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said today that more troops from the international community were needed along with more trainers for Afghan forces.