A Taliban emissary sat face-to-face this week with a senior Afghan government official responsible for peace talks in a rare high-level gathering between the bitter adversaries, an official said Saturday.

The encounter at a peace and reconciliation conference in Kyoto, Japan, was a rare a positive sign in faltering attempts to find a peaceful end to the protracted conflict in Afghanistan. It also provided an unusual opportunity for Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government to sit down with its enemies -- the Taliban and the Hezb-e-Islami insurgent group.

Siddiq Mansour Ansari, a peace activist who was invited to attend the meeting this week at Kyoto's Doshisha University, said it was the third peace and reconciliation conference organized by the school but the first time the Taliban had sent an emissary.

The Taliban's former planning minister, Qari Din Mohammed Hanif, took part in the conference "to explain the policies of the Islamic Emirate," Taliban spokesman Zabilullah Mujahed told The Associated Press by telephone.