ISLAMABAD, Oct 15: A three-member delegation sent by former Afghan king Zahir Shah on Monday held separate meetings with President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar in the backdrop of the United Nations moves for setting up a broad-based government in Kabul.

However, no details of their meetings were immediately available.

The delegation is led by former Afghan foreign minister Hedayat Amin Arsala, and has Haji Abdul Khaleq Farahi and Rahim Sherzoy as its members. The message of the exiled king was delivered to the president, a source said.

Pakistan, which has been calling for the establishment of a broad-based government in Kabul, had extended an invitation to Zahir Shah for sending his emissary to Pakistan, through Italian minister of state for foreign affairs Margherita Boniver when she visited Islamabad on Oct 3.

The arrival of the former king’s emissary is being viewed as a positive development as far as Pakistan’s political interest and its reservations with regard to rise of Northern Alliance to the power is concerned.

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