ISLAMABAD, Nov 1: President General Pervez Musharraf has said that the new Afghan government should be “self- determined by the people.”

He said that former King Zahir Shah could play “the role of unification” of the new Afghan government, adding “the role of the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) is also important.”

He said this in response to a question in an interview with Asahi Shimbun, a leading Japanese daily.

The President said, “Participation of moderate Taliban members in new Afghan government is indispensable.”

Asked about the lifting of economic sanctions by the Japanese government, which had been imposed since the nuclear tests in 1998, he said, “I welcome it.” He said that he was very pleased about (Japan’s) lifting of sanctions.

President Musharraf referred to the complicated ethnic structure of the Afghan people. The daily states during the US secretary of state’s visit to Pakistan the president had explained the complicated structure of the Afghan society and Colin Powell “fully understood it.”

Referring to the collapse of pro-soviet Najibullah government in 1992, the president said, if power vacuum of the nature is created “bloodshed or anarchy might rekindle there.”

FO: Pakistan on Thursday said that the ongoing action in Afghanistan was being conducted under the United Nations and OIC resolutions.

Referring to UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi’s consultations with Pakistan officials on a broad-based government in Afghanistan, Foreign Office spokesman Aziz Mohammad Khan told the daily press briefing that Pakistan and other countries and international institutions were working as facilitators.

In reply to a question about a plan circulated by Mr Brahimi, the spokesman said no plan about the future Afghan government had been circulated by the United Nations envoy.

In reply to a question about PML acting president Javed Hashmi’s arrest, ISPR chief Maj-Gen Rashid Qureshi said that Mr Hashmi had been arrested by the regional accountability bureau, Lahore, on the charge that his assets were beyond his known sources of income.—APP/PPI