Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday he had asked the king of Saudi Arabia to help engage the Taliban militia in peace talks, though the discussions have not yet started. The US-backed Karzai said Afghan envoys had made repeated trips to the Gulf kingdom and to neighbouring Pakistan to facilitate the negotiations. "Since two years I have been sending letters and messages to the Saudi Arabian king and requested him, as a world Muslim leader, to help us bring peace in Afghanistan," Karzai told a news conference. In September 2007, the Afghan president said for the first time that he was ready to talk to Mullah Mohammed Omar, after earlier saying that he wanted negotiations with lower-level militant leaders. Karzai made a fresh appeal on Tuesday for Omar and others to come to the negotiating table. "We are trying so that our brothers, those Afghan Taliban who have taken the gun against their people and country, and their leader Mullah Omar, can return back to their country and work for peace," Karzai said.