M A I N   N E W S

Alliance, USA agree on govt formation

Tashkent, November 18
Mr James Dobbins, US special envoy, and Foreign Minister of Afghanistan Abdullah Abdullah today reached on an agreement on forming a post-Taliban government representing all segments of the Afghan population.

Addressing mediapersons after the meeting here, Mr Dobbins said consultations on this matter would continue with the involvement of representatives of the international community, Novosti reported.

Calling the negotiations “very positive’’, Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said, “We promised not to introduce troops into Kabul. But the situation changed when the Taliban withdrew its forces from Kabul and we had to enter the Afghan capital in order to ensure security for its residents.’’

Mr Abdullah said the Taliban regime was the only force opposing the United Front. “Taliban have been greatly weakened and this gives ground to talk of everlasting peace in Afghanistan,’’ he said.

He said the future of Afghanistan “must be built on national unity and good relations with neighbouring countries’’.

In the next few days, the representatives of the United Nations and the USA will also participate in the talks on the situation in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, a Reuters report, quoting Mr Abdullah, said the Alliance was ready to hold talks outside Afghanistan — a request made by the United Nations.

“It will be outside Afghanistan. Some of the venues proposed by (UN envoy on Afghanistan Francesc) Vendrell are acceptable to us — Germany, Switzerland or Austria,’’ he said. UNI

Warlords hold gun to peace

Islamabad, November 18
Notorious Afghan warlords are carving out territory for themselves following the collapse of the Taliban regime, raising the spectre of more internal chaos and civil war.

Far from paving the way for peace after more than 20 years of conflict, the US-led ouster of the Taliban militia has created a vacuum which is rapidly being filled by armed factions and ethnic rivals whose commitment to national reconciliation is ambiguous at best.

Provinces all over the country have been taken over by men with scores to settle and axes to grind. Their names are scattered through the pages of Afghanistan’s bloody modern history.

In the north there’s Abdul Rashid Dostam, an ethnic Uzbek commander known for strapping criminals to the tracks of his tanks.

In the east there are troops loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a hardline Pashtun like the Taliban, who helped reduce a third of Kabul to smoking ruins during the 1992-96 civil war.

And in Kabul itself there’s the Northern Alliance, a loose grouping of former enemies and turncoats who share nothing in common but a hatred for the Taliban regime and a hunger for power.

Elsewhere in the war-ravaged country, little-known tribal chiefs are filling the void left by retreating Taliban forces, carving out territory and influence which will be difficult to ignore once the complicated process of national reconstruction begins.

Hameed Gul, a former chief of Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, said most of the maverick warlords who had emerged out of the dust of the US bombing campaign was vehemently independent.

“The Northern Alliance cannot enter their areas and if they do it will lead to bloodshed,” he told AFP.

“There is a permanent hostility between them and the Northern Alliance. Afghanistan has returned to the days of fiefdom. It has been thrown back to the 1992 position and even worse.” PTI