But a man who claims to be spokesman for Hekmatyar denied that the rebel chief had issued any such statement, saying that it was cooked up by Afghan and foreign spies.

Hekmatyar is believed to be hiding in eastern Afghanistan or Pakistan while leading his Hizb-i-Islami (Islamic Party) faction. A one-time anti-Soviet fighter, he has been declared a wanted terrorist by the United States.

The statement in Pashto language, which has Hekmatyar's photo on top and his purported signature at the bottom, was aired by a local TV station and circulated among officials.

Read by telephone to AFP by a national security council official, it calls on Afghanistan's Taliban militia and other opponents of Karzai to end violence. Its authenticity could not be confirmed.

"Hezb-e-Islami members have refrained from killing brothers (fellow Afghans) and the destruction of the country and have resumed political activities," the statement read.

The group "has come to the conclusion that with fighting one can neither build a government nor a country. We have experienced this in the past 20 years of war," it said.