The Taleban that controls more than 90 per cent of Afghanistan immediately denounced the invitation, extended to the "Lion of Panj Shir", by Mrs. Nicole Fontaine, the French Speaker of the European Parliament, observing that the government Mr. Mas’ud is supposed to represent was "dead".

This is the first time that since he has entered war against the Soviet invasion of his country more than thirty years ago that "Commander" Mas’ud, described here in France as the "Asian Che" (Guevara), is travelling to the West.

Mr. Mas’ud’s other major visits to outside world were to Mash-had, the capital city of the Iranian North-Eastern Province of Khorasan to meet with other Afghan generals opposed to Taleban, a short trip to Tashkent and several quick visits to Doshanbeh, the capital of Tajikstan, where he meets with Iranian and Russians, the two major supporter of the Northern Alliance led by former Afghan President Borhaneddin Rabbani.

Mrs. Fontaine said she was "shocked" at the Taleban’s "fanatism" and called on Mr. Mas’ud as the vice-President and Minister of Defence of the Islamic Government of Afghanistan, the only one still officially recognised by the United Nations, to address the European Parliament.

She cited "serious and repetitive" violations of fundamental rights and personal dignity in Afghanistan, and referred to the Taleban's strict laws regarding female employment and education, she angrily observed that Afghan women were banned from working outside and "subjected to physical and moral violence from another age, particularly young girls, who are excluded from the education system".

The destruction of the two giant, centuries old stone statues of Lord Buddha carved in the mountain surrounding the northern city of Bamiyan outraged a world public opinion that was begging the Taleban not to go ahead with the idea.

Taleban destroyed the statues, insisting that they represented idolatry, a practice forbidden in Islam.

Sources said the invitation is a major diplomatic coup for both Mas’ud and the Northern Alliance that lead the resistance against the Pakistani and Saudi-backed Taleban since September 1996 when he and the Rabbani government were booted out of Kabul.

However, he warned that by "shunning one armed faction, ie the Taliban, and befriending another, ie the Northern Alliance (under Mas’ud), the European Parliament and other Western countries may be stoking the fire of continued fighting".

Iranian media that usually are sympathetic to the cause of the Northern Alliance quoted the Ariana Afghan news agency and a Pakistani newspaper saying that Mohammad Zahir Shah’s decision would be announced officially during the meeting, scheduled for 18 April in Geneva, of the Cyprus, Rome and Bonn Processes.

All the three processes had so far been making separate efforts for finding peaceful solution of the decades long Afghan fratricide war, with all emphasizing on convening of a Loya Jirga or a Grand National Council.

Quoting unnamed sources, Mr. Asadollah Kuhzad, an Afghan journalist in Peshavar who covers the Afghan conflict for the Persian service of Radio France Internationale said America also supports the formation of a provisional government by Zahir Shah and plans to give aid of 350m dollars to this cause.

Former Afghan Prime minister Golbodin Hekmatyar, the leader of the Hezb Eslami, stating that the Afghan crisis could not be solved by outsiders and must be dealt among all warring parties, rejected both the meeting and the plan.

He said CIA was behind the project of forming an Afghan provisory government in exile.

In an interview with Iran Press Service, Mr. Ahad Aziz-Zadeh, the Chairman of the Federation of Afghan Refugees Organisations in Europe said the three days meeting reviewed the situation in the war-ravaged nation with particular attention to the people’s situation but focused on the formation of four committees on cultural, development, women and youngsters affairs.