Afghan Taliban were in Iran for peace talks: foreign ministry

The Afghan Taliban were in Iran on Sunday for fresh peace negotiations with senior officials, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday.

"Yesterday, a delegation of Taliban were in Tehran and lengthy negotiations were held with Iran's deputy foreign minister... (Abbas) Aragchi," said spokesman Bahram Ghasemi at a televised press conference.

"The main purpose of these negotiations was finding solutions to help facilitate negotiations between Afghan groups and the country's government for advancing peace talks in the country," he added.

It came just days after a top Iranian official said talks had taken place with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told reporters about those negotiations on December 26 during a visit to Kabul.

"The Islamic Republic has always been one of the primary pillars of stability in the region and cooperation between the two countries will certainly help in fixing Afghanistan's security issues of today," Shamkhani said.