November 13, 2001	Tuesday	Shaba’an 26, 1422

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 12: Foreign ministers of Six-Plus Two group on Afghanistan on Monday endorsed efforts of Secretary General’s special representative on Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi to establish a broad-based Afghan administration on urgent basis.

In a declaration issued following a short meeting of the group at the UN following the report of a plane crash in New York, the group said the post-Taliban government in Afghanistan should consist of multiple and wide-ranging ethnic groups.

The group reaffirmed the central role of the UN in assisting the Afghan people in developing a political alternative to Taliban regime.

The draft declaration marks the first time the Six Plus Two, comprising Pakistan, Iran, China, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, the US and Russia, presented a plan on the new Afghan government.

The meeting was attended by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Russia’s Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Xiajung, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharzai, UN Special envoy on Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi. The rest of the governments were represented by their permanent delegates at the UN.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar, who was in New York at the time, was not allowed to move out of the hotel where he was staying by the US Secret Service. However, he was briefed later by the UN envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi.

The group pledged continued support to the humanitarian efforts by the United Nations to alleviate the suffering of Afghan people, both inside Afghanistan and in refugee camps located in the neighbouring countries.

The new government must satisfy the requests of Afghan citizens, protect human rights, bring about stability in the region and meet Afghanistan’s international obligations such as halting drug dealing, they said.

Earlier, Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar and the Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov met at the United Nations on Sunday and discussed the resolution of the Afghanistan situation.