A rchive Date
[ 21-02-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Afghanistan ]
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[http://msnbc.com/news/631870.asp
Afghan power talks near a deal
NBC NEWS AND NEWS SERVICES
BONN, Germany, Dec. 2 - Agreement on an interim Afghan administration neared Saturday after the Northern Alliance, prodded by U.N. and U.S. diplomats at peace talks here, finally proposed its candidates. The talks got a boost after the alliance’s foreign minister, in the Afghan capital of Kabul, said the alliance was ready to transfer power and agreed that the alliance’s leader, Burhannudin Rabbani, would not head a transitional coalition.
U.N. OFFICIALS had hoped to have an agreement finalized by Saturday, but talks continued late into the night and the chief U.S. delegate, James Dobbins, told NBC’s Charles Sabine that he expected the talks to stretch into Monday.
Hans-Joachim Daerr, Germany’s special envoy on Afghanistan, expressed confidence that an agreement could be reached by Monday evening.
The package debated through the night called for an interim administration of about 20 people, with a chairman picked by deposed King Mohammad Zaher Shah and international peacekeepers to protect them once they return to the battered capital, Kabul. “A lot of pressure has been applied here and in Kabul and we hope that it pays off,” one fatigued Western diplomat said.
A few names have begun circulating for the top jobs in the interim administration. Northern Alliance Interior Minister Yunis Qanuni and Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah seem sure to keep their posts, diplomats at the talks said.
Hamid Karzai, a prominent Pashtun tribal chief now fighting against the besieged Taliban in Kandahar, has a strong shot at heading the interim administration. He wanted to attend the talks as a pro-king delegate but could not leave his men in battle.
Under the proposal, the interim administration would run the country for about three or four months until a loya jirga, or traditional grand assembly, can be called to appoint a longer-term government.
“That has more legitimacy than any other method in which a supreme council is decided on here by 30- or 40-odd delegates,” said Daoud Yaqub, an adviser to the pro-king delegation.
It was unclear what role Rabbani might play in the interim administration.
PRESSURE PAYS OFF
The alliance move came after the top U.N. envoy spoke by telephone with Rabbani in Kabul, part of increased international pressure on the alliance leader after he brought talks in Germany to an impasse by rejecting key issues.
The alliance minister also said his group was prepared to “be flexible” on the issue of international peacekeepers in Afghanistan but that they would require a U.N. mandate and that their stay in the country should be limited.
Abdullah told a news conference that “we are ready to transfer power to a transitional authority and the head of the transitional authority will not be the head of the Islamic State of Afghanistan,” referring to Rabbani.
“My understanding at this stage is that significant progress has been made towards the formation of an interim or transitional authority,” Abdullah added, speaking after alliance leaders discussed plans with alliance delegates to the German talks.
HARD LINE SOFTENED
Rabbani had taken a hard line on Friday on both the issues of the peacekeeping force and the interim councils. He rejected the conference’s move to draw up lists of proposed members for the councils and said a security force should be made up of Afghans - 1,000 from each faction - and at most 200 foreign troops.
He demanded more decisions on the future government be made in Afghanistan rather than at the negotiations between four Afghan factions being held outside Bonn.
But on Saturday, U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said at the conference that alliance leaders in Kabul submitted a reply to the U.N. request for a list of candidates for one of the councils.
“We are studying the formula suggested as one of the options. It might lead to an agreement,” Fawzi said.
SMALLER DEAL?
The talks in Bonn had originally discussed setting up both an interim parliament of about 150 members and a small cabinet-like government, but that idea was shelved after the alliance failed to agree on a list of candidates.
Amena Afzali, an alliance delegate, said that instead her group was now comfortable with a small 20-member government: “The U.N. has accepted this and the people in Kabul have also agreed. We are now discussing the members,” she said.
Participants said the emerging deal may be limited to the smaller executive body - excluding a larger supreme council similar to a legislature for the time being.
“That’s the way things are going right now,” a senior U.S. official at the talks said. “There’s a lot of discussion about a possible deal.”
The other sides - a delegation supporting the former king as well as two smaller exile groups - have completed their lists, which U.N. mediators want to lock in while the participants are on neutral ground in Germany.
U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi telephoned Rabbani overnight, Fawzi said, apparently to win his support for the negotiating process.
Rabbani, who was Afghanistan’s president until the Taliban ousted him in 1996 and has never renounced his claim to the post, has repeatedly demanded more decisions on the post-Taliban regime be made on Afghan soil. The northern alliance controls around half of Afghanistan, and the United Nations has wanted any discussions to be held outside the shadow of alliance military domination.
SPLITS REMAIN
But splits among the various factions in the alliance exposed the complexities of leaving behind 22 years of war and civil conflict and raised questions about the meaning of any deal reached in Germany.
Ismail Khan, a Northern Alliance leader running the eastern city of Herat, insisted that people in Afghanistan should not be pressured into accepting new leaders - or a continued foreign troop presence.
“Any government and any leader imposed on the Afghan people by foreign countries won’t be able to last for long,” he told Al-Jazeera television, alluding to the ex-king.
“The Afghan people should be allowed to determine their faith and future.”
A tribal leader who controls fighters trying to lay siege to Kandahar, the last Taliban stronghold, also said he opposes forming an interim government in Germany.
Gul Agha complained that Pashtuns have been given to small a role, the Pakistani newspaper Daily Jang reported Saturday. The Pashtuns are the largest Afghan ethnic group and predominate in the south of the country.
Rabbani said on Friday that he opposed the consensus developing at the talks for appointing the interim councils rather than electing them and for giving a major role for the former Afghan king.
He also objected to any international security force, saying he would prefer an all-Afghan force with 1,000 fighters from each faction. Any foreign contribution should be limited to 200, Rabbani said.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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