October 16, 2001	Tuesday	Rajab 28, 1422

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 15: Any effort to foist a non-representative government on Kabul would neither bring peace nor stability to Afghanistan, foreign office spokesman Riaz Mohammad Khan said at his daily press briefing here on Monday.

A government of the minority Northern Alliance in Afghanistan was doomed to fail because there could be no government without the majority Pushtoon population of that country being represented in it, he said.

He also voiced Pakistan’s concern over the prospect of anti-terror operation in Afghanistan getting prolonged and the loss of human lives mounting as a result.

The foreign office spokesman, who was speaking hours before the arrival of the US Secretary of State Colin Powell, said he was not in a position to say much about Mr Powell’s visit but he believed that his discussions with President Musharraf and the foreign minister would be very detailed and would cover all aspects of the Afghanistan situation and the state of regional tensions.

Replying to a question, he said the present tensions in Pakistan-India relations were quite likely to come up during the talks. The spokesman was asked whether Mr Powell’s visit might lead to an exchange of visits between the foreign ministers of Pakistan and India to lower the tension between the two countries.

Pakistan-India relations have their own dynamics that could be influenced by “friends”, influential countries, UN Secretary General etc., he said, and went on to recall that during the Clinton presidency, the United States had proposed resumption of dialogue between the two neighbours, in June 1998, as one of the five benchmarks for improved Pakistan-US relations. The peace and stability in the region implied peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute, he added.

To a query, the FO spokesman said Pakistan had been expressing its deep sorrow over the loss of innocent lives in the US-led anti-terror campaign in Afghanistan and its prolongation. He said during the discussions with Mr Powell, Islamabad would again raise its concern over these issues.

The spokesman confirmed that former Afghan king Zahir Shah’s envoy and his political aide Hedayat Amin Arsala and his two companions were currently in Islamabad and were holding discussions with Pakistani officials on ways and means to bring to an end the bloodshed in Afghanistan.

Pakistan had held discussions with the former king’s emissaries in the past also and had consistently maintained that a solution to Afghanistan’s problem could be found only if that country could establish a broad-based government in Kabul.

APP adds: Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar has said Pakistan’s concern will rise with continuation of military operations in Afghanistan.

Talking to BBC, he said, “I think the longer this operation lasts, greater the collateral damage and the larger the number of Afghan refugees that enter Pakistan, greater will be the worry and concern in Pakistan.”