U.N. to remove Taliban from sanctions list - Afghan gov't

KABUL, June 22 (Reuters) - The United Nations has agreed to remove Taliban members who renounce ties to al Qaeda from a U.N. blacklist on a "gradual" basis, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office said on Tuesday.

"The president asked the U.N. delegates to remove Taliban members from their blacklist and the delagates agreed to do so gradually and provided the members had no links to al Qaeda or other terroist groups," Karzai's palace said in a statement.

Senior diplomats from the 15-nation U.N. Security Council were in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, following a call for a review of the names of Taliban figures on its sanction list at a peace conference in Kabul earlier this month.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Jonathon Burch; Editing by David Fox)

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