KABUL, Nov 13: The Northern Alliance on Tuesday invited all Afghan groups to come to Kabul to start negotiations on the future of the country.

The invitation was issued by the alliance’s foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah after its troops swept unopposed into the capital that had been ruled by the Taliban militia since 1996.

“We invite all Afghan groups at this stage to come to Kabul and to start negotiations about the future of Afghanistan and to speed up negotiations,” Abdullah told a news conference.

The United States and its allies, including Pakistan, had urged the Northern Alliance to stay out of Kabul to allow time for the constitution of a broad-based successor government to the Taliban.

But the alliance, which dispatched thousands of troops into the capital abandoned by the Taliban, said they were there only to ensure security and there would be no unilateral attempt to run the country.

Abdullah rejected giving other countries a pre-eminent role in the formation of a new administration. “The future government of Afghanistan cannot be formed by foreign forces,” he said. “But the presence of the UN is necessary, of course.”

“The situation is developing in a dramatic manner and it needs a new evaluation,” the Northern Alliance official said. But he pledged that any government to be formed would pose no threat to Afghanistan’s neighbours. —AFP

Meanwhile, Uzbek warlord Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum announced on Tuesday that Burhanuddin Rabbani would be the new president of Afghanistan but was silent on his own role in the regime, adds Monitoring desk.