A planned UN-supervised meeting of Afghan leaders to discuss the future of their country could be held this weekend at a still undecided venue, Pakistan Foreign Minister Mr Abdul Sattar said today.
He told a news conference the meeting was due to be held some time later this week, and said it could take place around the 24th of this month.
Mr Sattar said the United Nations would select the Afghans to be invited to the meeting. He said this would be the first of a five-step process planned by UN Secretary-General Mr Kofi Annan's special representative on Afghanistan, Mr Lakhdar Brahimi, leading to the formation of a post-Taliban Afghan government.
The process would include a subsequent larger meeting of a provisional council to discuss the formation of a transitional administration which would govern Afghanistan for up to two years and culminate with a grand assembly to form the future government.
Despite frantic diplomacy in Kabul, UN special envoy Mr Francesc Vendrell was still awaiting word from Afghan leaders on whether they would attend the planned talks aimed at averting factional chaos and ethnic strife in post-Taliban Afghanistan.
Mr Vendrell has spent 48 hours meeting key figures in the Northern Alliance, also known as the United Front, which captured the capital last week, as well as other leaders.