November 2, 2001	Friday	Shaba’an 15, 1422

MOSCOW, Nov 1: Senior US and Russian negotiators agreed in a joint statement issued here on Thursday that the Taliban movement should play no role in a future government of Afghanistan.

But a joint statement issued by US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Trubnikov left open the question of whether “moderate” Taliban might participate in the next regime.

“The sides agree that the Taliban as a movement should have no place in future bodies of state power in that country,” Armitage and Trubnikov said in the statement following a round of consultations.

At the same time, the sides said they supported the creation “of a broad-based, multi-ethnic government” in Afghanistan, confirming that “determining the country’s future is an exclusive prerogative of the Afghan people.”

Russia has insisted the Taliban be barred from a future government in Afghanistan, although Washington has said that individual Taliban could have a role to play.

The difference of views comes despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of support for the US campaign, which came in reprisal for the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Washington’s position is in part linked to its desire to appease Pakistan, which is the only government which still recognized the Taliban while also assisting the US air strikes.

However Moscow fears that the participation of any Taliban members in a new government could destabilize Russia’s volatile southern rim for decades to come.

Russia already accuses Afghanistan, and prime terror suspect Osama bin Laden, of arming and training rebels who have been waging a brutal 25-month guerrilla war against federal forces in Chechnya.

Putin has said that the Taliban have “discredited” themselves as an organization while Washington only agrees that Taliban “leaders” did not belong in power.

The compromise wording of the joint declaration issued by the US embassy appears to represent a concession from Moscow, as the phrase “Taliban as a movement” leaves open the possibility that specific members of that organization may still be invited into government.

Putin and other Russian officials have previously said that the Taliban, who are by origin Pashtuns — the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan — could not join, although ethnic Pashtuns would have to be represented in the government.

At the same time, the joint statement said that Russia and the United States further “reiterated the central role of the United Nations in international efforts to resolve the Afghan conflict.”

Touching on the military operation itself, the statement said that Russia reaffirmed Putin’s earlier promise that Russian forces could take part in “search and rescue missions” in Afghanistan.

The announcement is in part significant because senior Russian military officials, including Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, followed Putin’s comments by declaring that Russia would never send its troops into Afghanistan, where the Soviet Union lost a brutal 10-year war in the 1980s.

“The Russian Federation confirmed its preparedness to continue interaction with the United States within the parameters defined in the statement of the President of the Russian Federation of September 24, 2001,” the statement released by the US embassy in Moscow said.

In a national television address, Putin said that “Russia is further ready, if necessary — if necessary — to take part in international search and rescue missions.”

Military analysts said that the extent of Russia’s military involvement of search and rescue missions would feature prominently on the agenda of US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld brief visit to Moscow scheduled for Saturday.—AFP