Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has welcomed a new war strategy unveiled by Barack Obama, his US counterpart, for Afghanistan and Pakistan, calling it "better than expected".
Speaking on Saturday in Kabul, Karzai said it was "exactly what the Afghan people were hoping for" to help fight extremism and bring stability to Afghanistan.
Obama unveiled his administration's plan on Friday, which includes the deployment of an extra 4,000 US troops to train Afghan forces, following a review of policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"This is better than we were expecting as a matter of fact," Karzai said.
Speaking about government peace initiatives, Karzai asked that the names of Taliban members without links to al-Qaeda be removed from a UN blacklist.
He said the move would help create "the right environment" for a peace process between the Afghan government and so-called moderate Taliban elements.
"In the right environment means ... looking at the list that is with the United Nations and removing the names that are not part of al-Qaeda, that are not part of [the] terrorist network ... and the help of the countries who have an important role in this regard must be asked for," Karzai said.
More violence
Afghanistan has seen rising violence in recent years as Taliban forces - ousted from power by a US-led invasion in 2001 - reorganise and launch attacks from the border region with Pakistan.
In the latest round of violence, Afghan and US forces killed 12 suspected fighters during a raid on a compound in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, according to the US military.
In video
The US military said in a statement on Saturday that the fighters tried to use women and children as shields during the battle, and that one child was injured.
