Urgent meetings held on replacing Taliban

Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS - With opposition forces driving Afghanistan's ruling Taliban fighters from their strongholds, foreign ministers from eight key countries agreed Monday to accelerate efforts to form an alternative government "on an urgent basis."

The ministers from Afghanistan's six neighbors as well as the United States and Russia met on the sidelines of a weeklong General Assembly gathering as opposition fighters claimed to have advanced toward the capital, Kabul.

A declaration issued at the end of a 90-minute meeting endorsed efforts by the top U.N. envoy for Afghanistan "to facilitate efforts by Afghan groups committed to a free and peaceful Afghanistan to establish a broad-based Afghan administration on an urgent basis."

The envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, said he hopes to get "a representative sampling of the Afghan population together to see what kind of interim arrangements we can work together for Kabul," hopefully within days.

Two U.S. officials said postwar arrangements were likely to include the use of peacekeepers from Muslim and non-Muslim countries. The idea originated with Turkey, and other likely participants are Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Jordan, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

U.N. headquarters on Manhattan's East Side was sealed off after an American Airlines jet crashed in Queens, causing U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to arrive about 15 minutes late for the meeting. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar missed the meeting, but a senior Foreign Ministry official was there and represented the country, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

The so-called Six-plus-Two committee comprising the United States, Russia, and the six Afghan neighbors – Iran, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – has been trying for years to end the civil war in Afghanistan.

In their declaration, the eight ministers backed efforts by the Afghan people to find a political solution that they said should be "broad-based, multiethnic, politically balanced, freely chosen ... and at peace with its neighbors."

The ministers also gave a strong endorsement to "efforts by the Afghan people to rid themselves of the Taliban regime," which they said had allowed Afghanistan to be used for terrorist activities.