NEGOTIATORS AT AFGHANS BONN TALKS AGREED ON THE GENERAL DRAFT
BONN 3 Dec. (IPS) Afghan delegates at Bonn talks reached Monday agreement of the formation of an interim government and certain institution, debating the personalities best fit to head these administrations, according informed Afghan and diplomatic sources at the talks.
Northern Alliance leader Borhaneddin Rabbani, whose government was driven from Kabol when the Taleban captured the capital in 1996, said he would accept any one of four possible nominees to lead an interim administration, his spokesman said.
This Rabbani’s latest comment is a big slap in the face of Iranian ayatollahs", said one source at the talks, noting that even the Cyprus Group that is backed by Iran did not bowed to demands and conditions put to them from Tehran.
Rabbani's spokesman named the candidates as Hamid Karzai, a Pashtoon royalist, former President Sebqatollah Mojaddedi, former Justice Minister Abdol Sattar Sirat, who is an ethnic Uzbek, and Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani, a Pashtoon spiritual leader.
Yoones Qanooni, the head of the Northern Alliance to the Bonn talks who also is the movement’s Interior Minister and Dr. Abdollah Abdollah, the Alliance’s Foreign Minister were also considered, but they refused, preferring to keep their present job in the future set up, the source added.
"I think we are very close to a final agreement," Qanooni told journalists.
Diplomat confirmed that the delegates, from the dominant Northern Alliance, the pro-King Zaher Shah, the Iranian-backed "Cyprus Group" and the Pakistani-supported "Peshawar Group" all agreed on proposal from Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi for the creation of a 25 members government headed by a prime minister assisted by four aids, a judiciary and the convention of a first Loya Jirga within six month.
As the Bonn talks, which are held in Petersberg, an old palace built over the hill overlooking both the Capital of the former Western Germany and the river Rhein, get closer to an end, in Bonn itself, another conference of the Afghan’s Civil Society ended its works on Tuesday, putting emphasis on respecting the rights and respect of Afghan women.
A journalist covering this conference, that started last Thursday, said participants discussed problems of security for Afghan women, education, human rights, constitution, economy and reconstruction, all subjects ignored by the talks in Petersberg among the Afghan delegates.
The conference on Civil Society condemned foreign interferences in Afghans interior affairs, the misuse of religion, cultural violence and arms and drugs smuggling and urged the continuation of the presence of multinational forces until the convention of the first Loya Jirga.