Under strong international pressure to reach a compromise and end more than two decades of war, four Afghan factions began talks yesterday seeking agreement on how to share power and secure peace once the Taliban are defeated.
The talks among four delegations representing the Northern Alliance, exiles backing former King Mohammed Zaher Shah and two smaller exile groups are the most concerted effort yet to stop the strife that has plagued Afghanistan.
PHOTO: REUTERS
With the US, Russia and neighbors such as Pakistan and Iran exerting influence from the corridors, the delegates must decide how long a transitional administration would run the country before convening a national assembly and the makeup of a peacekeeping force under a UN mandate. Regional stability and billions in development aid are at stake.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer opened the conference at a luxury hotel overlooking the Rhine River with an appeal to deliver peace and stability to the Afghan people.
"I urge you all to forge a truly historic compromise that holds out a better future for your torn country and its people," Fischer said. "The international community is prepared to make this great effort," but only if its expectations are met.
Heavy responsibility
The delegates must agree on binding rules for a future political system and respect for human rights, particularly for women, Fischer said.
"Their active participation in the social and political life of the nation is essential for the country's peaceful future," Fischer said.
Leaders of each of the four delegations gathered around the 36-seat table gave opening remarks, before they broke up into a shifting series of groups. The delegations represent all the major ethnic groups, including the Pashtun minority. However, due to rapid developments on the battlefield, key warlords stayed home, sending sons, sons-in-laws or key aides instead.
Each of the four delegation heads underscored the need for flexibility and an interim authority that would include all Afghans, also women, who under the Taliban's five-year Islamic rule lost most of their rights. Two women were among the 25 Afghan delegates at the table.
The Northern Alliance, which comes to the talks in a position of strength after ousting the Taliban from much of Afghanistan, said they would not use their battlefield victories to seek advantage.
"We want a new Afghanistan that emerges from the dark ages into the modern," the Northern Alliance delegation leader Younus Qanooni said.
Western nations have linked the prospect of billions in reconstruction aid to the creation of an interim administration and respect to human rights by Afghanistan's new rulers.
Marines in first test under fire
US Marines beefed up their forces near Kandahar yesterday, trying to pin the Taliban down in their last stronghold.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the goal for the hundreds of Marines was to throttle free movement for Osama bin Laden, his al-Qaeda operatives and the Taliban protecting him.
The Marines fought their first engagement overnight, sending attack helicopters to fire on a convoy of 15 vehicles heading for the desert airstrip they had seized 24 hours earlier.
As the stars and stripes fluttered atop their compound, which locals said had been used by bin Laden, pilot John Barranco from Boston said US forces had the upper hand.
"The enemy is pretty much in a reactive, defensive mode at night and we can go on the offensive," he said.
Local Afghan tribesmen also squeezed their Taliban foes, snipping at their one remaining escape route to Pakistan, which said it might beef up border security to prevent an influx.
Vowing to fight the Americans until their last breath, the Taliban showed no sign of giving up Kandahar, spiritual home of supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and all they have left.
The area around Kandahar is one of the most heavily mined in the world. Thousands of Taliban, with tanks and artillery, and foreign al-Qaeda fighters are believed to be in the city.
Omar was still there, the Taliban said, but they gave no clue to the whereabouts of the Saudi-born dissident bin Laden.
Washington believes he is in the area, others say he may be hiding out in remote mountains or may have even slipped away.
The US-held airstrip, where some 1,000 Marines will be based within days, is within striking distance of Kandahar but reporters taken there were not allowed to disclose its location.
Tribal forces said they were closing in on the southern end of the Taliban domain, around Spin Boldak by Pakistan, amid fresh reports the militia had lost control of the border town.
In the north, the Alliance tightened its grip on Kunduz, seized from the Taliban this week.
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