Diplomatic Row

Acting European Union mission head Michael Semple and senior UN official Mervyn Patterson were ordered to leave the country within 48 hours after being accused of holding an illegal meeting with members of the Taliban.

"It is the government's last decision. They are persona non grata," Reuters quoted an anonymous Afghan official as saying.

The United Nations has described the affair as a 'misunderstanding'.

The press officer for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Nilab Mobarez, said the organization hoped to quickly clear up the situation so Patterson could soon return. He told the German DPA newsagency, that nothing criminal against the national interest of Afghanistan was going on.

Talks with terrorists?

Semple, an Irishman, and Patterson, a Briton, were charged with having talks with the Taliban in the town of Musa Qala in the southern province of Helmand without the knowledge of the government in Kabul.

The UN said the two had gone there to find how best to restore stability after it was reclaimed from Taliban occupiers earlier this month.

NATO and Afghan troops this month drove the Taliban out of the province, which is the heart of Afghan's drug-producing poppy production. The radical Islamists had controlled the region for the previous 10 months.

The men have both lived and worked in Afghanistan for many years.

The UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper also reported Wednesday, citing an unnamed intelligence source, that agents from Britain's Secret Intelligence Service held talks with the Taliban over the summer in the presence of Afghan officials.

The report was published about two weeks after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown stated his government would not negotiate with "terrorists."