November 23, 2001	Friday	Ramazan 7, 1422

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

DUSHANBE, Nov 22: Military attaches from several national embassies in Dushanbe flew by helicopter to Kabul early on Thursday for meetings with members of the Northern Alliance, the Tajik defence ministry announced.

The diplomats, from the embassies of the United States, Russia, India, China, Iran and Kazakhstan were set to meet the alliance’s military chief General Mohammad Quassim Fahim, after being flown into Afghanistan aboard Tajik military helicopters.

A meeting with “president” Burhanuddin Rabbani was also said to be on the cards.

The Northern Alliance has given only qualified approval to a UN blueprint for forming a new broad-based government in Kabul, saying it agreed in principle with the UN-sponsored plan to build a multi-ethnic administration but held reservations about the fine print.

Rabbani, ousted by the Taliban in 1996 but still the UN-recognized president, defended the alliance’s moves to consolidate its authority in Kabul and other areas of Afghanistan under its control, saying that otherwise there would be anarchy.

“We continue to be the official government of Afghanistan. And we must carry out our functions until the new administration is formed,” he said in an interview published on Wednesday.

“We can’t delay this for a single day because it will lead to anarchy, which is not in the people’s interests,” Rabbani added.

The alliance’s political figurehead said that some individuals who had been in the ranks of the Taliban could play some role at lower levels in the country’s administration but not in the future government.—AFP