After more than two years of internal disputes and rivalries, the Obama administration is for the first time united on stepping up its secret talks with the Taliban. It also wants to start wider talks with regional countries such as Pakistan, which hold the key to a peaceful settlement as the US and Nato prepare to pull out their troops by 2014.

As the situation in Afghanistan worsens with a ferocious Taliban summer offensive having just started with a spate of suicide bombings, the White House, the state department and the Pentagon are preparing for extensive diplomatic initiatives in the next few months to take the fledgling peace process forward and push to broker an end to the war.

Nato countries, especially Britain, and regional countries, especially Pakistan, have long expressed frustration at the failure of the US administration to unite and move forward more rapidly on ending the war. Most of the 49 countries with troops in Afghanistan are desperate to leave. US officials increasingly are feeling the heat of domestic pressure. According to an ABC poll two-thirds of the American public believe the war is no longer worth fighting. At $2bn a week, the war is exacting a high cost from American and European taxpayers.