Kabul: Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents have demanded in negotiations with the US that prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay be transferred to Qatar, an Afghan government spokesman said yesterday.

But President Hamid Karzai's government objects strongly to the move and wants the prisoners sent directly to Afghanistan, presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi said.

The Taliban announced this week that they planned to set up a political office in Qatar. At the same time, the hardliners demanded the release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. Karzai was told by the US about the demand that they should go to Qatar shortly before the Bonn conference on Afghanistan in December, Faizi said.

"Several meetings had taken place between the Americans and the Taliban...it was the first time that they talked about the transfer of the prisoners to Qatar... But we don't want them to go directly to Qatar — our government is strongly against it," he said.