Afghan President Hamid Karzai travelled to Qatar on Saturday in order to discuss the issue of opening office for Taliban movement in the Gulf state.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai travelled to Qatar on Saturday in order to discuss the issue of opening office for Taliban movement in the Gulf state.

"We will discuss the peace process, of course, and the opening of an office for the Taliban in Qatar," presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi told AFP before Karzai left Kabul with several senior members of his government.

"If we want to have talks to bring peace to Afghanistan, the main side must be the Afghan government's representatives -- the High Peace Council, which has members from all the country's ethnic and political backgrounds."

Until earlier this year, Karzai was strongly opposed that the extremists have a meeting venue outside Afghanistan as he feared that his government would be frozen out of any negotiations.

The militants refuse to have direct contact with Karzai, saying he is a puppet of the United States.

But, with NATO-led combat troops due to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, Karzai agreed to the proposed Taliban office in Qatar and is expected to firm up the plan with the emir of Qatar on Sunday.

Any future peace talks still face numerous hurdles before they begin, including confusion over who would represent the Taliban and Karzai's insistence that his appointees are at the centre of negotiations.