ISLAMABAD, Nov 22: Coalition forces will not allow a safe passage to non-Afghan fighters besieged in Kunduz by the Northern Alliance, a CIS spokesman said on Thursday.

“We will certainly not like to see the grant of safe passage to the non-Afghan fighters back to their countries,” Ambassador Kenton Keith of the Coalition Information Service told his daily briefing.

All the Taliban fighters would be treated according to international norms, he clarified.

He said all the non-Afghan fighters should be detained and registered with the International Commission for Red Crescent and added that their future would be discussed with their countries.

He advised the Afghan fighters to lay down their arms immediately to avoid further bloodshed. “The best way to save lives in Kunduz is for the Taliban there to surrender.”

Mr Keith welcomed the Islamabad decision to sever diplomatic ties with Taliban. In reply to a question whether Pakistan had done that on the request of the United States, he said: “I do not want to go into details.”

He said they had heard encouraging reports that the Kunduz situation was moving towards a peaceful conclusion.

As regards the proposed Afghan conference to be held in Bonn on Monday, Mr Keith said: “It is becoming clearer that the ethnic balance of this conference will reflect the breadth of diversity in Afghanistan, including strong Pakhtoon representation.”

He said the coalition saw no place for the Taliban at the conference table. The conference, he added, would be an important step towards the establishment of a broad-based, multi-ethnic government in Kabul. The Northern Alliance and all other groups had decided they would attend the conference, he said.

“After years of misrule they have been discredited as political forces. Over the last two weeks we have watched province after province abandon the Taliban. It is clear that they do not speak for the Pakhtoons any more than they speak for any other Afghan people.”

About the looting of humanitarian consignments, he said they had assumed the responsibility to provide security to international aid workers and consignments but added that the coalitions forces had no control over the country’s highways.

In reply to a question about the opening of the United States diplomatic mission in Kabul, he said they were still evaluating the security situation.

Asked about Al Qaeda, he said it was still in existence and its leaders had not been brought to book, and they can still launch operations from Afghanistan.