December 16, 2001	Sunday	Ramazan 30, 1422

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 15: Afghan foreign affairs minister Abdullah Abdullah placed a series of conditions on the deployment of a United Nations multinational security force in his country.

In a letter dated Friday, Abdullah said that authorities in Kabul should have their say ahead of the deployment agreed upon on December 5 during inter-Afghan talks in Bonn.

The Afghan government “agrees with the deployment of multinational forces in Afghanistan on the basis of Chapter VI of the United Nations charter,” Abdullah said in the letter.

The contributing countries, however, want to deploy the forces under Chapter VII of the UN charter, which allows their soldiers to use force if necessary.

Abdullah also said that “in each case of deployment of forces, earlier coordination terms are to be agreed upon with the Afghan authorities in Kabul, regarding the nationality and the size of the military units, their intended location on the Afghan territory, the duration and the timetable of their assignment and the modalities of their role on the ground.”

The Afghan minister said he “earnestly expects” the Security Council to takes this request into account in the language of the UN resolution scheduled to be likely adopted next week to authorize the force.

Late Friday the top United Nations envoy for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, acknowledged there were problems to be resolved before the force could be deployed in the Afghan capital.

Brahimi however insisted that the problems would not prevent the interim Afghan government from taking power on December 22.

“I’m sure you are well aware that there are some objective problems, and not any delaying tactics by anybody,” Brahimi told journalists after a closed-door Security Council meeting on the situation in Afghanistan.

The mandate, the mission, the number of troops and the conditions of force deployment are still being debated by countries that have offered to send troops as well as the United States, which is pursuing a military campaign in Afghanistan.

Officials from 16 countries willing to commit soldiers to the force to be deployed in Kabul gathered in London on Friday to thrash out details.

While the United Nations had initially insisted on the rapid deployment of the multinational security force, Brahimi tried to diminish the importance of any delay.

“We are confident that this will not disrupt the process” of the political transition,” he stressed.

The historic power-sharing accords signed in Bonn called for the installation of a 30-member interim administration to be headed by Pashtun royalist Hamid Karzai, as well as the deployment of a UN-mandated international security force in and around Kabul to help police in the war-torn city.

The mandate was to be approved by a UN Security Council resolution.

But diplomats said the five permanent members of the Security Council — the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia — had not finalized by late Friday a draft resolution on the force, despite numerous meetings on the issue.

A vote would not come before Tuesday at the earliest, as Monday is a UN holiday to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, diplomats said.—AFP