The Taliban, whose extreme interpretation of Sharia law and its harsh punishments made Afghanistan one of world's most repressive and reviled regimes, have agreed to soften their position on such things as beards and burqas as part of a trade-off in negotiations with the Afghan government.

Afghanistan is increasingly the focus of international diplomatic attention following a major international conference in The Hague this week. It will surface on the fringes of the G20 summit and dominate this week's Nato meeting in Strasbourg.

Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, floated the idea of talking to “moderate” Taliban at the Hague conference, saying that those who gave up “extremism” would be granted an “honourable form of reconciliation”.

Publicly, a Taliban spokesman yesterday rejected the American offer, describing it as “a lunatic idea”.

But preliminary talks between President Hamid Karzai's government and Taliban insurgents are already under way, and appear to have yielded a significant shift away from the Taliban's past obsession with repressive rules and punishments governing personal behaviour.

The Taliban are now prepared to commit themselves to refraining from banning girls' education, beating up taxi drivers for listening to Bollywood music, or measuring the length of mens' beards, according to representatives of the Islamist movement. Burqas worn by women in public would be “strongly recommended” but not compulsory. The undertakings have been confirmed by Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, who was the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan in the late 1990s, and who has been part of a Saudi-sponsored peace initiative.

The initiative also comes, according to former senior members of the movement, at a time when the Taliban are intensely apprehensive about the immediate future with an impending military and diplomatic offensive by the Obama administration.

According to Christoph Horstel, a German analyst of Afghan affairs, Mullah Zaeef has confirmed that the Taliban are no longer insisting that their members should form the government. Instead, they would agree to rule by religious scholars and technocrats who meet with their approval following a national loya jirga, or community meeting, attended by public figures. The demand for a loya jirga could be met as early as next month if President Karzai convenes a meeting of elders to determine who should rule when his term ends on May 21.