TEHRAN, Nov 22: Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw gained limited approval for the deployment of British troops in Afghanistan in talks here Thursday with the Northern Alliance, before leaving for Islamabad.

But the secretary said he thought there was no need for more foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Iran, meanwhile, called for the establishment of a special Afghan police force — rather than foreign troops — to maintain security in their country.

The Northern Alliance’s foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah “has given our approval for a limited deployment,” Mohammad Kheirkhah, the Afghan ambassador to Iran, told AFP.

“But in case of an important deployment, there should be more dialogue and discussions,” he said.

Kheirkhah indicated that the Northern Alliance had accepted the presence of 100 British special forces who flew into Afghanistan’s Bagram air base on November 15.

However Iran’s state radio quoted Abdullah as saying that “the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan is dispensible.”

“The events of the past few weeks in Afghanistan have proven that only the internal forces in Afghanistan can establish peace in this country,” Abdullah said before also leaving Tehran.

“Currently, a limited number of foreign troops are present in Afghanistan for humanitarian efforts. But their presence is different to the presence of those who have come for the war,” he said.

For the last week, 6,000 British soldiers have been on 48-hour standby to be sent to Afghanistan, but deployment plans appeared to have stalled amid reports of opposition to the move from both Washington and the Northern Alliance.

“How and when and where we deploy (troops) is a matter we can decide day by day and we should retain the flexibility to do so as we wish,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair told parliament in London on Wednesday.

Abdullah and Straw also discussed humanitarian issues and next week’s UN-sponsored conference in Germany of Afghan groups on the country’s political future, Kheirkhah said.

“Representatives from all Northern Alliance groups will take part in this meeting,” Abdullah, to whom Straw gave a message from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said on Iranian television.

He said the Northern Alliance government approved the presence at the Bonn talks of former Afghan king Mohammed Zahir Shah, but rejected any participation by the Taliban.

Straw also met Iran’s Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi who criticised the “presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan,” warning they “will only complicate the crisis in this country and will be opposed by the people of Afghanistan.”

“Handling Afghan issues should be left to the Afghan people,” Kharazi told Straw and called for the establishment of a “special Afghan police force so that security in Afghanistan is established by the Afghan people.”

Straw once again underlined Iran’s “key” role in the region, and expressed hope that the inter-Afghan meeting in Bonn would “represent a major step on the road for creating a broad-based government.”

Before leaving Tehran for Islamabad, Straw, who said his talks with Kharazi had been “constructive,” also met the parliament’s committee charged with Afghan affairs.—AFP