The leader of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban has said he is ready to hold talks with the United States over Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the attacks on New York and Washington, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported.
"We have not tried to create problems with America," Mullah Mohammad Omar told a gathering of Islamic clerics in Kabul, called to discuss the fate of the Saudi-born exile and the possibility of US military strikes.
"We have had several talks with the present and the past American governments and we are ready for talks," AIP quoted Omar as saying. It said the gathering of clerics was expected to take a final decision on bin Laden's fate today.
Omar, spiritual leader of the Taliban, is considered a chief protector of bin Laden, who has become the world's most wanted man since hijacked airliners hit New York's World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in Washington.
Bin Laden has denied masterminding the attacks.
Earlier, AIP quoted the reclusive Taliban leader as saying in a speech read out to the gathering that the US should show patience. "We want America to gather complete information and find the culprits," Omar was quoted as telling the meeting of hundreds of clerics at the presidential palace in Kabul.
Evidence could be submitted to the Afghan Supreme Court or to clerics of three Islamic nations. "We assure the whole world that neither Osama nor anyone else can use Afghan territory against anyone," he said.
The grand council of clerics, or shura, could decide what to do about bin Laden and whether to back the call of the Taliban leader for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States.
Omar said international pressure over bin Laden had another goal, the destruction of the Islamic state. "The enemies of this country look on the Islamic system as a thorn in their eye and they seek different excuses to finish it off. Osama bin Laden is one of these."
Pakistani officials left Afghanistan on Tuesday after trying to convince the Taliban that if it did not not hand over the Saudi-born militant, its fighters would face the full wrath of the world's most powerful military force.
Giving shelter to one who asks is a centuries-old tradition, part of an unwritten code called Pashtunwali - the way of the Pashtuns - which Afghanistan's mainly ethnic Pashtun people are required to uphold, even at the cost of their lives.
The Taliban, however, app-eared on Tuesday to shift its opposition to extraditing bin Laden, who was reported to have left Kabul and travelled on horseback with his bodyguards to a rugged mountain retreat.
"Anyone who is responsible for this act, Osama or not, we will not side with him," said Afghanistan's interior minister. However, in talks with the delegation from Pa- kistan, the Taliban said it needed "proof" before it would consider turning bin Laden over for trial in an Islamic country.
Newspapers in neighbouring Pakistan said Afghanistan, which has harboured bin Laden for years, are reported to have said it could be ready to extradite him under certain conditions, one of which was that he be tried in a neutral Islamic nation.