A former Taliban diplomat, now a member of the nation's High Peace Counsel, has told Al Jazeera that peace will only come to Afghanistan if political power is shared among the various groups in the Central Asian nation.

Abdul Hakim Mujahid, the former Taliban envoy to the United Nations, says that the government of Hamid Karzai has failed to embrace all sides of the Afghan conflict in a political solution. According to Mujahid, this exclusion is not limited to the Us-backed leadership, pointing out that the Taliban itself failed to do so for the five years they had control over the nation.

Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith reports from Kabul.