ROME, Oct 14: Afghanistan’s influential ex-monarch Mohammad Zahir Shah has sent a senior delegation to Pakistan for talks with President Pervez Musharraf, sources close to the former royal family said on Sunday.

They said the delegation left late on Saturday for Islamabad carrying a message from Zahir Shah to the Pakistani leader.

President Musharraf earlier this month invited Zahir Shah, who turned 87 on Sunday, to send a delegation to discuss a post-Taliban Afghanistan should the ruling militia be toppled by the current US-led military strikes.

Zahir Shah’s delegation includes political aides Hedayat Amin Arsala, Haji Abdul Khaleq Farahi and Rahim Sherzoy.

But the royal family sources said the dispatch of the delegation has upset the Northern Alliance, with whom the former monarch agreed on Oct 1 to form a supreme council which can elect a head of state and transitional government.

An alliance delegation had been expected in Rome this weekend to hold talks with the monarch, but one royal source said its arrival has been delayed because of the departure of the Zahir Shah mission to Pakistan.

Zahir Shah, who has been living in Rome since his 1973 overthrow in a coup after a 40-year rule, is internationally regarded as the single unifying force who can bind Afghanistan’s disparate forces into a cohesive administration.

On the advice of Italian police, the frail monarch marked his 87th birthday with low-key celebrations because of security concerns rather than holding an elaborate function as in previous years.—AFP