He said that the meeting was due to be held "some time later this week", and said it could be held "around the 24th of this month".

He said the UN would select the Afghans to be invited to the meeting, which he said would be the first of a five-step process planned by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special representative on Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, leading to the formation of a post-Taliban Afghan government.

UN spokesman Eric Falt said in Kabul that UN Special Envoy Francesc Vendrell had yet to reach an agreement with the Northern Alliance, now in control of the capital, on a meeting of all Afghan political groups that the UN hopes to arrange outside Afghanistan.

Possible neutral venues in Europe include Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Falt said Vendrell would meet diplomats from Russia, Iran and Britain in Kabul later on Monday.

The process would include a subsequent larger meeting of a "provisional council" to discuss the formation of a transitional administration that would govern Afghanistan for up to two years and culminate with a grand assembly to form the future government.

In a related development, Mr. Vendrell pressed on with a round of meetings with Afghan leaders in Kabul on Monday but his spokesman said there had been no breakthrough in organizing the planned political gathering.

The Northern Alliance has said it would prefer round-table talks on a framework for a future broad-based government to take place in its Kabul stronghold. But Abdullah said in Uzbekistan on Sunday the meeting could take place abroad, as demanded by the UN to allay the concerns of some Afghan ethnic and political factions deeply suspicious of the Alliance.

Meanwhile, the World Bank said on Monday it would play host next week to an international conference on the economic reconstruction of war-torn Afghanistan. The talks will take place in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, from November 27 to 29 with the UN Development Program and the Asian Development Bank as co-hosts.