UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations has removed Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Hizb-i-Islami leader and a veteran of the decades of Afghan war, from its list of designated terrorists following his recent peace agreement with the Kabul government.

“Therefore, the assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo ... no longer apply to him,” the UN Security Council’s Sanctions Committee said in a statement issued at UN Headquarters in New York Friday.

The move comes months after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s government sealed a peace deal with Hekmatyar’s Hizb-i-Islami, or HIG, an insurgent faction. The 25-point peace agreement gives Hekmatyar and his followers immunity for past actions and grants them full political rights.

The truce required Hekmatyar to cease fighting against the Afghan government in return for his removal from the UN blacklist, along with other leaders of his faction, and allowing his group to resume political activities in Afghanistan.

The UN announcement also said Hekmatyar, 67, was listed on February 20, 2003 and was "believed to be in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border area as at January 2011."

A former prime minister, Hekmatyar was a prominent among the Afghan Mujahideen in the fighting against Soviet troops in the 1980s. Following the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan and fall of the Taliban, the US State Department designated him a terrorist, accusing him of taking part in and supporting attacks by Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

A longtime guerilla commander with a history of war crimes and rights abuses, Hekmatyar’s militias battled the Taliban for control of Afghanistan during the brutal civil war of the 1990s following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.

The United States has also designated him a terrorist and offered millions of dollars for information leading to his arrest. But Washington has welcomed Kabul’s peace deal and promised to take steps to support efforts aimed at ending years of conflict in Afghanistan.

However, the Taliban has refused to engage in peace talks with the Afghan government and instead intensified insurgent activities across the country.

AFP adds: Although Hekmatyar is accused of killing thousands in Kabul during the 1992-1996 civil war, many foreign governments, including the United States, praised the landmark accord as a step towards peace in Afghanistan.

Diplomatic sources said only Russia had opposed the move, which theoretically opens the way for Hekmatyar's return to Kabul after two decades of exile in Iran and then in Pakistan.

France was initially reluctant because of Hezb-i-Islami's involvement in an ambush northeast of Kabul that cost the lives of 10 French soldiers in August 2008, but later changed its mind.

"It is an important point of the peace agreement between Hezb-i-Islami and the Afghan government," chief negotiator for Hekmatyar, Mohammad Karim Amin, told AFP.

"And it shows the commitment from the government and from the Hezb-i-Islami to pursue on this peace track," Karim said.

It would also "open the door" and stimulate the peace process and would send a "strong signal to other fighters" in the country, he said in reference to the Taliban.

He further said that it showed "the only key to achieve a peaceful solution to the conflict is through an inter-Afghan negotiation without any foreign interference".

"We always said his return (Hekmatyar) won't be linked to the lift of the sanction but obviously it will widely ease it," Karim said.

The whereabouts of Hekmatyar, who was not present in Kabul for the signing of the agreement that was completed via video conference, remain unknown.

Hekmatyar was a prominent anti-Soviet commander in the 1980s and a major figure during the bloody civil war of the 1990s when he was accused of indiscriminately firing rockets into Kabul, as well as other human rights abuses.

Hekmatyar is believed to be in hiding in Pakistan, but his group claims he remains in Afghanistan.

With the UN sanctions now scrapped, government officials expect Hekmatyar to return to the Afghan capital.

Hezb-i-Islami has been trying to repair Hekmatyar's public image as a murderous warlord as it attempts to rebrand from a radical, misogynistic movement to a mainstream political force.

According to BBC, the Afghan government asked for the UN move as part of the deal with Hekmatyar and his militant group in September. The deal grants him immunity in return for support for the Afghan constitution and a promise to abandon violence.

Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami militant group is the second biggest in the country.

Once one of the main recipients of western aid, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was deeply hostile to the west and was later accused by the US State Department of supporting attacks by Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

BBC says Hekmatyar appeared to have calculated that he would be more significant as a political leader in Kabul than as the leader of a group of fighters up in the mountains who are also competing with the Taliban for influence.

Hezb-i-Islami hassupporters across the country and it is thought the peace agreement could encourage some Taliban leaders to consider joining the process.

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