MOSCOW, Nov 16: Softening Moscow’s support for its traditional allies, the Northern Alliance, a senior Russian diplomatic source said on Friday that Pakhtoons should have a prominent role in a future Afghan government.

“We don’t want to repeat either the usurping of power by the Northern Alliance or the complete takeover by the Taliban,” the official told journalists.

“We want to see a stable government, a government which will live at peace with its neighbours, with no attempt by one ethnic group or another to dominate, so there is a balance,” he added.

Moscow favoured an interim administration in which the Pakhtoons would have a 30-40 percent share of ministerial posts, the Tajiks 25-30 percent, Uzbeks 10-15 percent and 5-10 percent for the Hazara, according to the diplomat.

He said that the Northern Alliance’s UN-recognized ousted president Burhanuddin Rabbani, who has vowed to return to Kabul as leader of free Afghanistan, represented the “legitimate” government of Afghanistan.

The alliance takeover, ignoring pleas from the United States to stay outside Kabul while a power-sharing arrangement was worked out, has sparked concern that the anti-Taliban forces will once again monopolize the government.

In 1992-96, after the collapse of the pro-Soviet regime, the same ethnic factions held power in Kabul, subjecting the country to a period of lawlessness and anarchy.

The Russian diplomat repeated Moscow’s insistence that the Taliban could play no role in any future administration.

But pointing to a new flexibility in Russia’s approach, he added that Pakhtoon tribal leaders who had worked within the ranks of the Taliban should not be excluded.

“The Taliban as a political movement cannot sit down at the table for political negotiations but a significant part of Pakhtoon community was implicated in this movement, at various levels,” said the official.

“Those who have not dirtied their hands, Pakhtoons who have authority in their local areas, who help to maintain stability, if tribes support them, they can stay on,” he added.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has repeatedly said that “moderate Taliban” who renounce the militia can join moderate Afghan forces in reconstructing the war-ravaged state.

MILITARY DELEGATION: Russia said on Friday it had sent a top military delegation to Afghanistan to establish its first contact with “legitimate” Afghan leaders amid growing manoeuvring for influence with the country’s post-Taliban regime.