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LONDON, Nov 13: The Northern Alliance’s unstoppable surge into Kabul on Tuesday prompted urgent calls around the world for the creation of a broad-based government in Afghanistan and greater UN involvement.
Britain, France, China and the world’s largest Muslim country, Indonesia, were all quick to point to the dangers of a lengthy political vacuum.
French President Jacques Chirac, in Abu Dhabi, underlined the point.
“It’s more urgent than ever that a (political) solution is put into effect very rapidly,” he told reporters. “Nothing would be worse than a transition period where there was no coordination, a situation which would not guarantee stability.”
France’s Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine was earlier quoted as saying Northern Alliance forces must stay out of Kabul to avoid a repeat of the chaos and civil war which followed the withdrawal of Soviet forces from the country in the early 1990s.
In Washington, President George W. Bush declared himself “very pleased” with the progress of the war but White House spokesman Ari Fleischer stressed the importance of all parties in the conflict observing human rights.
With military advances fast overtaking political moves in Afghanistan, several countries said no single group was able to bring peace to the country.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said plans for a successor government to the Taliban were well advanced and urged a United Nations presence in Kabul.
“We need urgently to put in place the next political and humanitarian moves that the changing military situation now permits,” Blair said in London, shortly after talking by telephone with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
“I have spoken to him about the need to push on with... efforts to establish a broad-based government. That of course must include all the various elements in Afghanistan including the Pakhtoon,” Blair said. “That process is well advanced.”
UN ROLE: China, in particular, pressed the United Nations to raise its profile in the country.
“The United Nations should take a bigger and more active role,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao told a news conference on Tuesday.
Zhu echoed support for Monday’s declaration at the United Nations by the so-called “six plus two” group of the United States, Russia and Afghanistan’s six neighbours.
That declaration backed efforts by the Afghans to “rid themselves of the Taliban regime” and find a shared political solution to the crisis “on an urgent basis”.
Moscow said a future Afghan government should include all ethnic groups but no members of the Taliban.
Indonesia said it would recognize the Northern Alliance as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan if the United Nations did so first.
President Megawati Sukarnoputri has previously issued veiled condemnations of US-led air strikes on Afghanistan
EU REACTION: In Brussels, the European Union welcomed the Northern Alliance advances.
European Commission External Affairs spokesman Gunnar Wiegand said the latest developments would open the way for deliveries of vital humanitarian aid.
But he said efforts to build a broad-based government now needed to be intensified, and singled out UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi as key to promoting international efforts to bring political stability to the country.
Former Afghan king Zahir Shah, who has been living in exile in Rome since 1973, is seen by many members of the international community — including the United States and the United Nations — as a vital figure in the future of the country.
A senior adviser to the king said on Tuesday the Northern Alliance had broken their agreement with the monarch by entering Kabul.
“We did not expect that they would enter Kabul. We wanted Kabul to be demilitarized and that the Kabul government and administration should come under a political process,” said Abdul Sattar Sirat.—Reuters
