Talks aimed at kickstarting negotiations for a final peace settlement in Afghanistan have begun in Pakistan.
Monday's meeting could revive a process that collapsed last summer after Afghanistan announced that Mullah Mohammad Omar, founder and leader of the Taliban, had died in a Pakistani hospital more than two years ago.
The announcement led the Taliban to pull out of the talks after just one meeting hosted by Islamabad.
The discussions on Monday will also include the governments of the US and China.
| Factors influencing peace talks |
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Javid Faisal, deputy spokesman for Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, said that Pakistan would present a list of Taliban members who are and are not willing to participate in talks with Kabul on ending the 15-year war.
The agreement would also include "bilateral cooperation on eliminating terrorism", Faisal said.
"Those who are interested in peace can join the dialogue, but those who wish to continue the fight will be targeted through joint counterterrorism platforms," Faisal said.
Speaking at the meeting on Monday, Sartaj Aziz, a foreign affairs adviser to Pakistan's prime minister, said: "The primary objective of the reconciliation process is to create conditions to bring the Taliban groups to the negotiation table and offer them incentives that can persuade them to move away from using violence as tool for pursuing political goals."
Aziz said that neither preconditions nor threat of military action should be attached to the start of the negotiation process.
Attempts at peace talks have occurred in the past, but Al Jazeera's Omar al-Saleh, reporting from Kabul, said: "What is different this time is that when the Pakistani army chief [General Raheel Sharif] came to Kabul last month, the two sides [Afghanistan and Pakistan] agreed that this time Pakistan will use force alongside the Afghan government against any Taliban members who oppose the peace talks."
He identified several factors the parties must be taking into consideration, including what he called "the splinter within the Taliban".
"The Taliban is not one united faction ever since the appointment of their new leader, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour," he said.
ISIL phenomenon
This power struggle within the Taliban has raised questions about who would represent the group if and when the talks with the Afghan government restart.
"There is also the emergence of ISIL [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group] in eastern Afghanistan, which is fighting the Taliban. And, finally, the lack of confidence and trust between Pakistan and Afghanistan is a major issue, and they will try with the Americans and the Chinese to resolve these issues," the Al Jazeera correspondent said.
The Taliban has stepped up attacks since the United States and NATO formally ended their combat mission in Afghanistan a year ago, and the fighters are battling local Afghan security forces on several fronts.
The group is expected to keep up the fight even if peace talks get off the ground in order to secure territory and improve their leverage in the negotiations.
When the Taliban opened their office in Qatar in June 2013, they outlined their two-pronged strategy of fighting and negotiating simultaneously.
It appears now that the group has made good its pledge, Al Jazeera's Hashmat Moslih says.
"The Taliban have always made the [complete] withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan as one of their main demands for peace," he said.
"The group also wants constitutional reform with the word 'sharia' mentioned in the constitution.
"Since the Taliban is a predominantly Pashtun force, the main challenge is how to integrate the group into the national unity government without disturbing the delicate ethnic balance that has arguably been achieved."
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