The foreign ministry on Friday asserted that India’s participation at a “non-official’’ level in the “Moscow format” talks on Afghanistan, attended by Taliban representatives, was in keeping with New Delhi’s longstanding support for any peace process that is “Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, and Afghan-driven’’.

Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar, however, refused to reveal what factors had influenced New Delhi’s “considered decision” to participate in a meeting that put Indians on the same table as the Taliban, even if only at a “non-official” level.

India has till now avoided any direct public contact with the Taliban except in December 1999, when New Delhi was forced to negotiate with the group to end the IC-814 hostage crisis in Kandahar.

Fielding a slew of questions on the subject at a news conference, Kumar refused to be drawn into explaining what participation at a “non-official’’ level meant.

However, his clarification that the government’s acceptance of the Russian invite was a “considered decision” indicated that the participation by retired diplomats Amar Sinha and T.C. Raghavan, who had headed missions in Afghanistan and Pakistan respectively, had official sanction.

Neither Sinha nor Raghavan read out any statement at the meeting.

Sources said that India, which is considerably invested in Afghanistan, decided to participate in Friday’s discussions only after consulting Kabul and Washington. Afghanistan and the US, too, refrained from participating officially in the talks in Moscow.

While the US sent a diplomat from its mission in Moscow as an “observer’’, the Afghan representation was in the form of a four-member team from the High Peace Council, a mechanism former President Hamid Karzai had set up in 2010 to engage in talks with the Taliban.

Afghanistan’s foreign office issued a statement clarifying that the High Peace Council participated in the meeting as a “national but a non-government institution with a view to discuss the dynamics and details of initiating direct negotiations’’.

Kabul also stressed that Friday’s meeting “is not a follow-up of previous meetings (Moscow format) held among sovereign states where the government of Afghanistan also participated, as in today’s meeting the Taliban have also been invited’’.

A statement issued by the Russian foreign office after the meeting said the focus was on speedy launch of an inter-Afghan dialogue. But the Afghan commentariat -– only too familiar with attempts by various countries to broker peace between the warring tribes and ethnicities in the country -- appeared unconvinced about any progress in this direction.

Amrullah Saleh, former head of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security, tweeted: “More or less 12 countries have their own so-called peace process for Afgh & they all call it Afghan owned & Afghan led. In reality much of it is aimed to connect with terrorists & buy safety for their homelands. Neither their intent nor their conduct of peace effort is helping Afg.’’