There are indications that the Taliban would be willing to sit with the Afghan government in a multiparty arrangement, US peace envoy said on Friday.

Speaking at a forum in Washington, Zalmay Khalilzad, who has held several rounds of talks with the Taliban, said that the Taliban prefer not to set with the government alone because they think that will give the government legitimacy and be favourable to the one of the candidate for president and his re-election campaign.

On talks between Taliban and Afghan politicians in Moscow, Khalilzad, at the US Institue of Peace, said that if the meeting leads to Afghans coming together, including the government, in their next meeting in Doha, then the meeting as a step in that direction would have been positive.

The envoy hoped that the intra-Afghan dialogue begins as soon as possible, as he said he was not discussing Afghan issues including the future government with the Taliban. He hoped that a final peace deal is reached before presidential election which is scheduled for July.

In their last meeting in Qatar in January, the US and the Taliban agreed in principle to frameworks for Taliban guarantee not to allow terrorists use Afghan territory and for possible US withdrawal.

The envoy assured that even if success is achieved on these two issues, there would be no final deal without a comprehensive agreement on other issues which relate to intra-Afghan dialogue.

"My overall goal is, at the direction of the president and the secretary of state, not to seek a withdrawal agreement but a peace agreement," he said.

Khalilzad said the US is not seeking permanent military bases in Afghanistan and will leave if Afghans do not want U.S. troops there, "provided that there is no threat to our national security from Afghanistan, that there are not terrorist threats from Afghanistan to the United States — that is a red line, and I think that's the policy of the president as well."

He said that the Taliban have learned from their mistakes of the past and do not want to be isolated.

“They say they need help. They need economic help. They would need assistance in many ways to stand on their own feet,” Khalilzad said.

He said that the Taliban wouldn’t be the government, but may be part of a power-sharing arrangement in Afghanistan.