Five Taliban Guantanamo detainees have agreed to be transferred to Qatar, and Kabul has dropped its opposition to the move as it seeks to boost peace efforts, an Afghan government spokesman said Sunday.

The inmates told a visiting Afghan delegation they were willing to be transferred to the Middle East state, and it was now up to the U.S. whether they were freed, said Aimal Faizi, spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

A deal on the transfer of the controversial U.S.-run Bagram prison and other detention facilities to Afghan authorities is expected to be signed later on Friday, an official said.

"There is expected to be a signing of a memorandum of understanding to transfer U.S. detention facilities to Afghan control," a Western official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

U.S. President Barack Obama and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai agreed in a video conference Thursday to continue a "partnership" tested by violence sparked after U.S. troops burned Korans.

"President Karzai updated the president on the security situation in Afghanistan, which has calmed since the events of recent weeks," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

Nine Afghan police were killed in an insurgent attack that authorities said Thursday was believed to have been facilitated by a fellow officer and suspected Taliban infiltrator.

The attack in the southern province of Uruzgan late Tuesday follows a wave of incidents in recent weeks in which members of the Afghan security forces have turned their weapons on their NATO and U.S. allies.

A Taliban suicide car bomber targeting a NATO base at Jalalabad airport in eastern Afghanistan killed nine people on Monday, following days of deadly anti-U.S. protests over the burning of the Koran.

Six civilians, an Afghan soldier and two local guards were killed, police said, but there were no reports of NATO casualties, according to a spokesman for the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai called for calm Sunday after days of violent anti-US protests, as police hunted an intelligence official suspected of killing two U.S. officers at the interior ministry.

The president made the appeal in a televised news conference after at least 29 people died in five days of demonstrations over the burning of Korans at a U.S. military base.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Saturday he had appealed to all Afghan warring groups including the Haqqani militant network to join national reconciliation.

The Haqqani network is known to have carried out some of the deadly attacks in Afghanistan, including a September 13 siege of the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

Two American members of NATO forces in Afghanistan were shot dead in the interior ministry in Kabul Saturday, military and government sources said, as anti-U.S. protests raged for a fifth day.

Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the shooting, saying it was carried out by "a hero mujahid Abdul Rahman" in revenge for the burning of Qurans at a U.S.-run military base.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Friday called on Taliban leaders and other Afghan insurgent groups to take part in a peace process to end 10 years of war in neighboring Afghanistan.

"I would like to appeal to the Taliban leadership as well as to all other Afghan groups, including Hizb-e-Islami, to participate in an intra-Afghan process for national reconciliation and peace," he said in a statement.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday invited the Taliban leadership to direct talks with his government, while urging Pakistan to facilitate negotiation efforts towards ending 10 years of war.

"In order to realize the objectives of the peace process, I invite the leadership of the Taliban to engage in direct talks with the Afghan government," Karzai said in a statement issued by his office.