NEW YORK The United States may designate members Haqqani group as terrorists in a move that could antagonise Pakistan and complicate any eventual Afghan political settlement, a leading American newspaper said Wednesday. The idea of blacklisting the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani was introduced by Gen David Petraeus, the new US military commander in Afghanistan, The New York Times reported Wednesday. Officials said that Petraeus suggestions are being 'seriously considered. Pakistan Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani recently offered to broker talks between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Haqqani network. But US officials remain sceptical about reconciling the networks senior leaders with the Afghan government, the Times said. The idea of Haqqani network on a blacklist was first made public by Senator Carl Levin who recently visited Pakistan and Afghanistan. Earlier, Levin had stressed that Pakistan must realise that it has to come down hard on the terror groups such as the Haqqani network. At the moment, the Haqqani network and their fighters coming over the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan is the greatest threat, at least external threat, to Afghanistan, The New York Times quoted Levin as saying. More needs to be done by Pakistan. The Pakistanis have said they now realise, more than ever, that terrorism is a threat to them not just the terrorists who attack them directly, but the terrorists who attack others from their territory, he added. The case of the Haqqani network underscores the thorny decisions that will have to be made over which Taliban-linked insurgents should win some sort of amnesty and play a role in the future of Afghanistan, the report said. Karzai has already petitioned the United Nations to lift sanctions against dozens of members of the Taliban and has won conditional support from the Obama administration, so long as these people sever ties to al-Qaeda, forswear violence and accept the Afghan Constitution. If they are willing to accept the red lines and come in from the cold, there has to be a place for them, Richard Holbrooke, the administrations Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said to reporters at a briefing on Tuesday. From its base in the frontier area near the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani is suspected of running much of the insurgency around Kabul and across eastern Afghanistan, according to The Times. The network, based in the North Waziristans tribal area along Pakistans border with Afghanistan, is thought to present one of the biggest threats to NATO and US forces in Afghanistan.