January 25, 2002	Friday	Ziqa’ad 10, 1422

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KABUL, Jan 24: Afghanistan took another small step towards democracy on Thursday with the confirmation of a 21-member commission to organize a council of tribal elders to appoint a new government.

The membership of the commission will be announced on Friday in Kabul during a visit by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, a UN official said.

“It has been formed and it will be announced tomorrow,” said Francesc Vendrell, UN deputy special representative to Afghanistan.

“There will be women on this council,” he said. “In my view it will be ethnically balanced and composed of people who are independent of the various military and political forces.”

The formation of the council and the calling of the Loya Jirga are part of the provisions of the Bonn accord, which paved the way for the formation of the six-month power-sharing interim administration that took office in Kabul on Dec 22.

The Loya Jirga has to appoint a transitional authority that will rule the country in the lead-up to elections, which must be held within two years.

FUND RELEASED: The US government on Thursday released 217 million dollars in Taliban assets it had frozen three years ago and made them available to the new interim government in Afghanistan.

The move by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control frees approximately 193 million dollars in gold and 24 million dollars in other assets of the Afghan Central Bank held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.—AFP/dpa