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King's return linked to political deal

An adviser to the former Afghan king was quoted yesterday as saying Mohammad Zahir Shah would return to Afghanistan when a proper political mechanism was in place and would not return as an ordinary citizen.

Politicians and diplomats are scrambling to reach agreement on a broad-based post-Taliban government after the opposition Northern Alliance swept into the capital, Kabul, on Tuesday in a dizzying rout of the hardline Taliban.

The ex-king, living in exile in Rome since he was overthrown by his cousin in a coup in 1973, is believed by many to be an important symbol in the war-torn country and a key player in a political settlement since he is one of the few figures who might be able to unite the disparate tribes in his rugged homeland.

"The return is conditional on a national political operation -- a mechanism must be found which pleases all Afghan factions and not just one side -- and based on the desire of the Afghan people and on the existence of a political operation for the people to make a fateful political decision about the future of Afghanistan," said adviser Abdul-Sattar Sirat.

"And in this picture the king will return to act out his role there and he will not return as an ordinary citizen," he told Saudi Arabia's Arabic-language Okaz newspaper.

Former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, titular leader of the Northern Alliance since he was ousted from Kabul by the Taliban in 1996, said this week the king could return to Afghanistan -- but only as an ordinary citizen.

"That is his [Rabbani's] personal opinion, but in the eyes of most Afghans the former king is not an ordinary citizen," Sirat said.

"Yes, he is an Afghan, but he has a special place in the minds of Afghans and has wide respect among the Afghan people," Sirat said.
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