Afghan factions in the United Nations-guided talks in Bonn entered a crucial day Saturday to finalize a deal on power sharing for proposed temporary authorities in Afghanistan's post-Taliban age.
Through heated negotiations, the United Front, known as the Northern Alliance, promised to produce a list for the interim bodies, paving the way for an acceptable agreement to all the four parties in the talks, which had been stalled as the alliance failed to give the list of candidates late on Friday, diplomats said in early morning.
Under UN's agenda, the Bonn talks focus on three aspects: framework of transitional authorities, security measures and "other matters." UN spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said Friday the Afghan groups were focusing "mostly on the structure, the composition, and the formation of the interim authorities, both the Interim Supreme Council and the Interim Administration."
"Finding the right people to sit on the council and run the country in an interim administration has not been an easy task. Finding the right person to be a head of state or to head the Supreme Council, again, is a question of finding agreement between the parties," he said.
The spokesman for UN special envoy for Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi said the two bodies need to be created in order to go through an interim period into a transitional period which will eventually lead to a much broader-based multi-ethnic government.
"The question of security, while being recognized as being of paramount importance, has still not been discussed in any great details," Fawzi said, adding that "the devil is in the details."
However, he told reporters the timetable for the talks was still three to five days and the final day must be Saturday. "But if we need an extra day, we'll get an extra day," he said.
The United Front, which now controls most of Afghanistan, has agreed in principle to share power with three rival factions, including the royalists who want former king Zahir Shah to return as a unifying head of state. With billions of dollars in foreign aid at stake, delegates in the Bonn talks, which started on Tuesday, have to agree on candidates for the interim cabinet and parliamentary council.
On Friday, the United States suggests it would not consider international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan until political arrangements are reached. Meanwhile, a rift appeared inside the United Front, whose figurehead leader in Kabul, Burhanuddin Rabbani, made statements at odds with the emerging deal his delegation has been seeking in the talks.
S.A. Haqbin, an alternate United Front delegate, said shortly before midnight on Friday that Rabbani had finally agreed to forward a list of candidates for the interim government, allowing talks to move forward on Saturday.
"Anything is possible at this moment," Fawzi said after he said.
Some diplomats believe it's very hard to solve everything in five days since Afghanistan has been at war for 23 years. They are ready to rebook their departure tickets and wash their laundry in anticipation of longer talks.
The talks brings together the United Front with the Rome group of the Pashtun former king, the Pakistan-based Peshawar group of mainly Pashtun exiles, and the Iran-backed Cyprus group. The United Front is a coalition of mostly ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras who now control most of Afghanistan. The Taliban, which is not represented at the Bonn talks, drew most support from the largest ethnic group, the Pashtun, which conprises some 40 percent of population.
(Xinhua News Agency December 1, 2001)
