Leaders of the Northern Alliance yesterday authorized their delegation at the Bonn talks on Afghanistan's future to choose from among four names to head an interim administration.
The Alliance's leadership council said the four were Pashtun tribal leader Hamid Karzai, former president Sibghatullah Mujadadi, Abdul Sattar Sirat, chief negotiator for the pro-monarchists, and Pashtun spiritual leader Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani.
The names were announced in a resolution adopted by a meeting of the council yesterday that included Alliance president Burhanuddin Rabbani, defense minister General Mohammad Qassim Fahim and foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
"The delegation of the Islamic State and United Front has the authority to select one of the four proposed candidates ... as the head of the interim administration," the resolution said.
But it did not authorize the delegation in Bonn to make decisions on the composition of the cabinet and other details, saying these "should be made in front of the leadership council."
The UN has been determined that Afghans should seize the historic opportunity of the talks to put the war-ravaged country back on a stable footing.
It has therefore insisted that the four Afghan groups negotiating hard for the last week near Bonn must furnish their nominees for a post-Taliban authority before they leave the conference and return to Afghanistan.
Rabbani spokesman Sayed Najibullah Hashimi denied there was a split between Rabbani and the Bonn delegation, and said the ousted president would respect any decision taken at the talks.
Of the four names, three are from the majority Pashtun and Sirat is Uzbek.
"We have no problems with the leadership of a Pashtun. We have no objections. They can come if they manage to have the support of all delegations," Hashimi said.
The resolution was passed after sources reported agreement among Afghan groups in Germany on a UN-brokered power-sharing deal as the first step in forming a government to replace the ousted Taliban regime.
The Northern Alliance source said that under the accord, to be signed today, a supporter of the exiled king Mohammed Zahir Shah would head the interim administration for six months.
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