ROME, Oct 9: Afghanistan’s former royal family has warned Pakistan not to try to play a kingmaker’s role if the Taliban government collapses under internal and external pressure.

General Abdul Wali, a senior aide and son-in-law of the former monarch, Mohammed Zahir Shah, said on Tuesday that the ex-king has, however, nominated a delegation to travel to Pakistan in a week’s time.

“Nobody has the right to interfere in our Afghan policy,” he warned.

“The delegation will exchange views on the two countries’ bilateral relations,” he said.

He also warned Pakistan not to interfere in Afghanistan’s internal affairs by favouring one Afghan ethnic group against another.

“Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Hazaras, Nooristanis and others constitute the Afghan people,” he said.

“It is the job of the Afghan people and only the Afghan people to determine the future government of Afghanistan. We have no consultations with others,” he said, after attending a session of Zahir’s associates and other exiled Afghan dignitaries here.

Wali, a Pashtun like the rest of the former royal family, rejected Pakistan’s concerns over a post-Taliban dispensation, saying Afghanistan was a multi-ethnic society and only its people had a right to determine the composition of a future government.

Zahir Shah, who has lived in Italy since 1973 after he was toppled in a coup, is seen by the international community as a figurehead around which disparate opposition groups could unite in a bid to form a post-Taliban government.

In a statement released after the first wave of US and British strikes in Afghanistan late on Sunday, Wali called upon the United States to respect Afghanistan’s integrity while attacking Osama bin Laden and the Taliban positions.

According to Wali, Zahir Shah is keenly following the situation in and around the country and his loyalists were regularly meeting here to find out “how the Afghan people could heave a sigh of relief at last and assume a place among the civilized countries”.

Zahir Shah ruled Afghanistan for 40 years after taking over following the assassination of his father Nadir Shah by a dissident intellectual.

His reign is generally remembered as a time of tranquillity in the otherwise turbulent history of Afghanistan.

The former royal family speaks Farsi, a language also spoken by the country’s ethnic minorities, a factor which adds to their growing popularity back at home.

A United Nations senior official said the world body also believed the 86-year-old ex-monarch was a possible replacement for the Taliban regime if it fell.

Thomas Ruttig, head of the UN Special Mission for Afghanistan’s (UNSMA) Kabul office, said: “I know that the king is very popular (and) that he is regarded by a lot of people as the only outstanding personality of national character who can guarantee the national unity of Afghanistan. Many people say that.”

“Yes that is the UN view,” Ruttig said.—AFP