IRAN RUSHES TO BE THE FIRST EMBASSY TO REOPEN IN KABOL
By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL (Reuters) 17 Nov. Iran will become the first country to reopen its embassy
in the war-battered Afghan capital, Kabol, effectively recognising the
opposition Northern Alliance as the new government after the Taleban, a diplomat
said on Saturday.
"Iran is thinking and considering opening the embassy", an Iranian diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
"Iranian diplomats were the first to arrive here and will be the first to open our embassy", he said. He could not say exactly when that would be.
The diplomats arrived on Wednesday -- just a day after the Northern Alliance took over as the fundamentalist Taleban retreated south -- and within hours stonemasons and painters began repair work on the embassy.
Workers were busy re-painting and clearing the sandbags erected during the years of factional fighting for control of Kabul between 1992 and 1996 when rockets rained down indiscriminately on the capital.
Iran is one of the key supporters of the Alliance. It recognises the Alliance government headed by titular President Borhaneddin Rabbani, whom the Taleban drove from power in Kabul in 1996.
The embassy official said Iran would continue to recognise Rabbani's government until a broad based government representing all tribes could be installed.
Tehran is seeking to ensure an important role for Afghanistan's minority Shiite Muslims, whose sect makes up most of the population of Iran, which lies along Afghanistan's western border.
However, its differences with Pakistan -- Afghanistan's neighbour on its eastern border -- over the composition of a future government and over representation in previous pre-Taleban governments have strained ties between the two regional powers.
Islamabad wants Pahstoons, the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and in Pakistani regions bordering it, to play a dominant role in a future government.
Iranian Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari visited Pakistan this week and said both countries were eager to see a stable Afghanistan sandwiched between. The two Islamic nations agreed to bury past differences.
Both Pakistan and Iran backed Islamic guerrillas who fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and absorbed most of the six million Afghan refugees who fled their country.
But differences grew as they competed for influence after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. The rift deepened when the radical Islamic Taleban movement, supported by Pakistan, took power in Afghanistan in 1996 after ousting the government of Iran-backed President Rabbani.
Pakistani Interior Minister Mo’ineddin Heydar sought to play down the past when asked if Thursday's talks had bridged the gaps. "I think no such differences are left which I could see," he said. "I did not see any difference."
Mousavi-Lari, who also met Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Mosharraf earlier on Thursday, said both sides were "trying to go further" and planned more talks.
A source close to that meeting said Mosharraf, who met Iranian President Mohammad Khatami in New York this week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, told Mousavi-Lari it was time now to end the differences.
The official APP news agency quoted Mosharraf as saying Pakistan and Iran must work in close co-ordination to bring durable peace and stability to Afghanistan. ENDS IRAN KABOL EMBASSY 171101