March 9, 2003	Sunday	Muharram 5, 1424

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PESHAWAR, March 8: Former Afghan prime minister Gulbadin Hekmatyar has appealed to UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan to get withdrawn all foreign troops from Afghanistan and adopt effective measures to check the inflow of weapons to his country through air and land.

A seven-page letter, purportedly written in English by Mr Hekmatyar who had been declared a terrorist by the US government last month, asked Mr Anan to play a positive and constructive role in resolving the Afghan crises. The US government had linked Mr Hekmatyar to Osama bin Laden and the deposed Taliban.

The letter, copies of which have been circulated here in newspaper offices, proposed seven suggestions to resolve what he described the current Afghan crises.

Mr Hekmatyar suggested the international body should take steps in all neighbouring countries to monitor the supply of arms in Afghanistan.

The letter said the interim government should be restructured in a manner to make it acceptable to all Afghans. The Russians, Americans, British and Germans should give clear undertaking that they would not indulge in printing banknotes for the government or any group.

Free and fair elections be held immediately according to a schedule to be agreed upon in an extraordinary intra-Afghan conference which should also take decisions on the issue of restoration of peace and other related matters.

The UN should have an active and effective role in convening the proposed intra-Afghan conference, avoiding the past mistake of allowing Americans and Russians to dictate their terms and invite groups of their own choice.

The letter said the Afghan groups should guarantee that Afghan soil would not be a source of instability in the region and a base for terrorism. In addition, poppy cultivation and trade related to it would not be allowed in the war-ravaged country.

Mr Hekmatyar said the American aggression in Afghanistan had replaced the Taliban with pro-Russian Northern Alliance who captured 80 per cent of the top brass of the Afghan army and other offices. The US had failed due to their anti-people policies to eliminate Taliban and Al Qaeda from the Afghan territory.