Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S and NATO commander, has confirmed that troops arranged for the safe passage of Taliban leaders to Kabul for peace talks. (Dan Kitwood, Associated Press)

The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, said Friday he has arranged for the safe passage of a senior Taliban commander to Kabul for peace talks.

Petraeus made the announcement at the Royal United Services Institute in London, England. It comes on the heels of news that the Taliban are open to peace talks led by an Afghan group and monitored by the U.S.

A senior NATO official first released information about the safe passage arrangement Thursday. The revelation is the most detailed picture yet of the U.S. and NATO role in clandestine talks with the Taliban aimed at bringing an end to the nine-year-old war in Afghanistan.

Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said Friday in Brussels that Taliban associates have been reaching out for talks about ending the war but that formal negotiations are not taking place.

The Afghan government has previously acknowledged that it has been involved in reconciliation talks with Taliban with some NATO help. Discussions between the two sides, however, have been described as mostly informal and indirect message exchanges relying on mediators.

The Taliban have denied there have been any contacts with Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government, insisting that all foreign troops withdraw first.

Picking up momentum

Holbrooke said Friday that, thanks to "tremendously increased military pressure" on the insurgents, "there have been an increasing number of people associated with the Taliban who have reached out and said: 'We want to talk about an alternative to the war.'

"This does not constitute a formal negotiation, but it falls in the category of reintegration," he told journalists. Last year, Karzai announced the start of a program aimed at reintegrating insurgents willing to forsake violence and respect the Afghan constitution.

"It's beginning to pick up a little bit of momentum. It's going slower than I would like but at least it's moving," Holbrooke said of the sidelines of a meeting of nations helping Pakistan cope with the crisis caused by this summer's disastrous floods.

Holbrooke declined to further discuss the peace moves in Afghanistan, saying nobody's interests were served by the constant speculation about talks.

"There's nothing incompatible between increased military pressure and keeping the door open to reconciliation and reintegration," he said.

International troops and Afghan security forces have been putting pressure on the Taliban in recent months in eastern and southern areas where the movement's heartland is located.

Despite being heavily outnumbered, however, the militants have fought back, inflicting record casualties on NATO forces.

Friday's announcement comes ahead of a key assessment date for Petraeus, believed to be in December, when he will stand before Congress and announce whether the U.S. is succeeding in its Afghanistan mission.