UNITED NATIONS: The chief United Nations official in Afghanistan said on Wednesday he felt apprehensions about the talk of US military action in Iraq, and said it could affect international efforts to rebuild Afghanistan.

“Certainly a major crisis in that part of the world is much too close to us for comfort,” said Lakhdar Brahimi, special representative for UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

“If it disrupts the region, if it disrupts Pakistan and Iran, which are two very important neighbours, that will affect us. There is no doubt about that,” Brahimi told a news conference.

There was no direct link between Afghanistan and possible conflict in Iraq, apart from the presence of the US troops in Afghanistan and their potential deployment to Iraq, he noted.

But Brahimi, who will brief the UN Security Council on Thursday, said: “We are extremely apprehensive, keeping our fingers crossed and looking forward to this breakthrough that the secretary-general has worked out yesterday.”

He referred to Iraq’s offer, under the US and international pressure, to re-admit the UN inspectors aimed at ferreting out and destroying Baghdad’s weapons of mass destruction.

Iraq’s move has divided the UN Security Council and weakened President George W. Bush’s drive for a new, strong mandate from the world body for unfettered inspections backed by the threat of force.

Brahimi is charged by the United Nations with heading the Afghan rebuilding efforts which begun after the US-led forces ousted the former Taliban rulers and their Al Qaeda allies.

Brahimi said security remained the most serious problem in Afghanistan and it was unclear as to how many warlords and others were bent on disrupting the reconciliation process now under way in a country torn by a quarter-century of war.

“There is absolutely no room for complacency,” he said.

But he remained hopeful that an international peace force— the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)— would help alleviate this problem if it was expanded beyond Kabul.

Afghan interim President Hamid Karzai, Annan and others repeatedly have urged the force’s expansion, and Brahimi said they had been “consistently” told this was “not possible.”

In a Reuters interview on Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Gurel again ruled out an expansion, saying other countries had declined to provide the needed additional troops.

Still, Brahimi remained hopeful. “We are encouraged by the fact that those who have been saying that, and are still saying that, recognize now publicly that some kind of support is needed, and what we are telling them is fine let’s sit down and discuss how we can bring that support,” he said.

Turkey’s six-month command of the ISAF ends in December, and Gurel said the Germans and Dutch would next take charge. But Brahimi said there was no decision yet on a successor.

The rebuilding has included a major push to develop a national police force and a national army that would assume responsibility for Afghanistan’s security in one or two years.

But some argue that this is too long and that is one reason why an expanded ISAF is needed.

Brahimi said that another immediate problem was the number of refugees — 1.6 million — who had returned to Afghanistan, including 400,000 in Kabul, “a city that has no services to speak of” and were facing a difficult winter.

The return is a “sign of hope” in Afghanistan’s future, but with four or five million refugees still in Pakistan and Iran, the UN is urging these countries not to force the Afghans out because “there is no way we can accommodate them all,” Brahimi said.—Reuters