Bonn talks edge closer to power-sharing deal

The UN talks on Afghanistan received a serious setback yesterday when the Northern Alliance rejected calls for an international security force in Afghanistan but there were hopes that the outlines of a mechanism to share power with Afghan monarchists had been agreed.

In an aggressive press conference performance, the leader of the Northern Alliance delegation, Mr Yunus Qanooni, called for further talks in Kabul and the need for an Islamic state. However, an adviser to Mr Qanooni was later quoted as saying monarchists and the Northern Alliance were close to agreeing a power-sharing deal. "They have agreed to set up a temporary council but the mechanism for its creation will be discussed tomorrow," the aide told Reuters.

"What will be discussed is how many people should be in it and who should be in the council," he said. The temporary council would be an appointed legislature empowered to name an interim executive to run the country for several months.

Earlier Mr Qanooni warned: "We don't feel the need for outside peacekeeping forces . . . The security situation is already under control," he said. Support, if needed, would come from ethnic groups in Afghanistan, he added.

The UN had suggested an international security task force to preserve law and order and ensure the security of aid workers and deliveries. It also proposes a broad-based interim authority to take over control of Afghanistan from the Northern Alliance.

Mr Qanooni said the Alliance agreed in general with the UN's five-point plan. As regards the "points on which there is no agreement", the alliance will "hold talks inside the historic city of Kabul and take it from there".

The choice of Kabul, which is under Northern Alliance control, as a venue for the next phase of talks is a cause of understandable concern to other participants.

"The international security force has to come and it will come," said Dr Anwar-ul-Haq Ahadi, a delegate of the Pakistan-backed Peshawar delegation. Asked if he would participate in talks in Kabul he said: "If they persuade me, yes". Mr James Dobbins, the US observer at the talks, said the US was not convinced of the need for an international force in Afghanistan and that it would not participate in any such force.

UN officials warned yesterday that an "agreement on everything may not be achievable".

"These people are talking for the first time in 28 years. We should not expect everything to be resolved in four to five days," said Mr Francesc Vendrell, the UN deputy special representative to Afghanistan.

He said that relations between the delegations were good "but that doesn't mean they will remain good".

He added: "Afghans may agree that they do not need an [international] security force."

Asked about a role for the former king, considered a favourite to head any interim authority, Mr Qanooni said the Northern Alliance believed in "systems not personalities".

He admitted that the delegations at the talks were not representative of ethnic groups in Afghanistan. "But if we had chairs here for all ethnic groups . . . there would be no room for them," he said.

If a democratic state was to be established in Afghanistan, he argued, it would have to be an Islamic state, as 99 per cent of the Afghan population are Muslim.

"Afghanistan will put its national interests before everything else," he added.

The Northern Alliance believes Pakistan is continuing to interfere in Afghan affairs through the Peshawar group of Pakistan-based exiles at the talks. He said this is a continuation of their aggressive interference through the Taliban.