Afghan officials are asking the United Nations Security Council to lift sanctions against some 50 Taliban figures, a senior diplomat said on Tuesday, amid moves towards reconciliation.
The Council's Al-Qaeda and Taliban sanctions committee is expected to decide whether to remove the names -- who include members of the High Council for Peace set up last year by President Hamid Karzai to seek talks with the Taliban -- by the middle of this month.
Western officials in Kabul say they are trying to set up communication channels with Taliban leaders but stress this is at a very early stage.
Karzai set up the peace council to seek talks with the Taliban in return for them laying down their arms and accepting the constitution, although its overtures have been rejected by the militants.
Peter Wittig, Germany's ambassador to the UN and chairman of the Security Council's Al-Qaeda and Taliban sanctions committee, said on a visit to Kabul that about 50 delisting requests were pending.
He added there was a "desire... to adapt the sanctions regime to the political requirements that are emerging."
"Of course we recognise in the Council the interest and efforts of the Afghan authorities to send out political signals in this fledgling political process and delist some of the Taliban members," he said.
He stressed that it was likely not all 50 would be approved.
"We have to manage expectations here -- not all of those 50 will be delisted, it's clear, but if we can come up with a couple of names, that would be a good sign," Wittig added.
The request is expected to draw opposition from countries such as Russia, China and India, according to Western diplomats familiar with the process who spoke anonymously.
Removing an individual from the list requires unanimous support from the Security Council.
There are currently 486 people on the committee's sanctions list, of whom 138 are associated with the Taliban.
Those on the list face measures including an international travel ban and having their financial assets frozen.
The committee is also set to consider a proposal to split itself into two separate committees for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban rather than treating them as one, Western diplomats said.
This would be in recognition that the Taliban's focus is Afghanistan while Al-Qaeda has a global reach, the diplomats added, saying the deadline for deciding this was June 17.
News of the proposals comes shortly after US Defense Secretary Robert Gates raised the prospect of clear moves towards reconciliation with the Taliban before the end of the year on a trip to Afghanistan.
"I believe that if we can hold on to the territory that has been recaptured from the Taliban... we will be in a position toward the end of this year to perhaps have a successful opening with respect to reconciliation, or at least be in a position where we can say we've turned a corner," Gates said.
