TEXT NEWS
Woman Delegate Positive About Afghan Talks
Northern Alliance looking for broad-based government
KOENIGSWINTER, Germany (CNN) -- Delegates of
the Northern Alliance have rejected calls for an
international security force to patrol in Afghganistan.
The rebuff came on the second day of talks about
Afghanistan's future in Bonn, Germany.
A security force is one of two items that are to be
decided at the talks among four Afghan factions. The other
is an interim administration.
"We don't feel a need for an outside force. There is
security in place," northern alliance delegation leader
Younus Qanooni said.He said that any force should be
comprised of the ethnic Afghans.
The United Nations has three proposals for a security
force to ensure peace in Afghanistan once the Taliban are
defeated: an Afghan force, a U.N. peacekeeping force and an
international security force. Officials have indicated an
international force would be the most realistic.
Alliance delegates met earlier on Wednesday with those
representing Afghanistan's former king, discussing a plan
for an interim administration to pave the way for a
post-Taliban government.
The Northern Alliance and the king's factions have
agreed, however, on a transitional council that would set up
an interim government.
Members of delegation of former king Mohammad Zahir told
CNN that the Northern Alliance and the king's factions,
which together make up a majority of the conference
participants, have agreed to form a transitional council of
120 to 200 members.
They said two commissions have been set up within the
conference to draw up lists names of who should be on the
council, and they hope to have those lists complete by end
of the conference. The council would then pick Afghanistan's
interim government.
But the delegates said implementation of the council
depends on a resolution of the security issue.
Later on Wednesday the two groups -- the two most
powerful at the talks -- planned to meet with Lakhdar
Brahimi, the chief U.N. envoy for Afghanistan.
The U.N.-sponsored summit is taking place at a hotel near
Bonn, and U.N. officials had said they were upbeat about the
progress so far.
One of the delegates, Ahwad Wali Massoud, said he was
hopeful about the outcome of the talks.
"We are hoping that we can get everything done, hopefully
(at) this meeting," said Massoud, the brother of
assassinated Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud.
"If not, at least we should get the main points. As a
principle, we should agree on the major things."
Also present at the talks are the "Peshawar Group,"
representing the millions of Afghan refugees in Pakistan,
and the "Cyprus Group," representing an Iranian-backed group
of Afghan exiles.
The United Nations opened the summit of Afghan factional
leaders on Tuesday to discuss the country's future and take
the first steps toward building a post-Taliban government.
Those attending are hoping the meeting will lead to a
roadmap for the "formation of a fully represented,
broad-based government."
All four groups have agreed the most important thing on
the agenda is forming a transitional, interim administration
to run Afghanistan for the next few months.
U.N. and U.S. officials agree that the former Afghan
king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, 87, -- who has been living in
Italy since a 1973 coup -- should play a role in the next
government, even if it is a symbolic one. Security is
another issue being discussed.
A U.N. spokesman said he expected the talks to wind up by
Sunday.
Sunday November 25 10:44 AM
ET
By Parisa Hafezi
TEHRAN (Reuters) - The sole Northern Alliance woman delegate
to U.N.-sponsored talks on Afghanistan (news - web sites)
said Sunday she hoped women would be able to play a more
prominent role in Afghan society in the post-Taliban era.
``My hope is that Afghan women will become active in all
social areas and can show their ability as managers,'' said
Amina Safi Afzali, one of the alliance's 11 delegates to the
talks near Bonn that start Tuesday.
Afzali, speaking to Reuters by telephone from Iran's
northeast city of Mashhad near the Afghan border, said the
meeting was a historic occasion for her war-torn country
even though women's issues would not be at the top of the
agenda.
``The Bonn conference will discuss the future of the Afghan
nation, be they men or women. Although women's issues may
not be covered, this meeting will decide the political
future of Afghanistan, of which women are a part,'' said
Afzali.
``I have fought for 20 years for Afghan women's rights, and
tried to show the world how oppressed they are. Maybe that
is one of the reasons that I was chosen as the only woman to
attend the Bonn conference,'' Afzali said.
``We respect the Islamic dress code but what the Taliban
imposed on Afghan women, such as wearing the burqa
(head-to-toe veil), is based only on the Taliban's Islam.
That is a kind of hijab (Islamic dress) that prevents women
from being active in society.
``We believe that women should have a proper Islamic dress
that does not prevent them from taking part in social and
political activities,'' said Afzali, 43, a leading figure in
the Afghanistan Women's Islamic Movement over two decades.
After taking control of Kabul in 1996, the Taliban issued
edicts in line with their austere vision of Islam which
forbade women from working outside the home, attending
school and leaving their homes unless accompanied by a male
relative. Women were also forced to wear burqas.
Afzali spoke approvingly of a demonstration Tuesday in which
hundreds of women, shedding their burqas, gathered in the
Afghan capital Kabul to demand their rights.
``About the demonstration in Kabul, I can say that women are
right not to accept a stone-age dress code which the Taliban
forced them to follow,'' she said, speaking hours before
leaving for the talks outside Bonn.
Afzali's husband, mujahideen commander Safiollah Afzali, was
killed fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan 14 years ago.
November 24, 2001 Posted: 6:51 PM EST (2351
GMT)
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN)
A top Northern Alliance official Saturday said he hopes
an impending meeting between Afghan leaders and United
Nations representatives will lead to "a fully represented,
broad-based government."
"It is a unique moment for Afghanistan," said Dr.
Abdullah Abdullah, the Northern Alliance's equivalent of a
foreign minister. "The whole situation has changed inside
Afghanistan, in the region and in the international
community."
The Northern Alliance is among four Afghan groups that
have been invited to talks with U.N. officials in Bonn,
Germany, that are scheduled to begin Tuesday. The talks,
aimed at laying the ground work for a post-Taliban Afghan
government, were to begin Monday but were postponed by a day
to allow delegates more travel time.
Abdullah said there would be women representatives in the
talks -- a departure from the Taliban regime, which kept
women out of positions of power. "Women will be part of our
delegation," he said.
The current moment in history is unlike any Afghanistan
has ever seen, Abdullah said.
"In the international community, there is a new focus on
the situation in Afghanistan," he said. "All these factors
create a unique opportunity, which all of us ... should
seize."
Abdullah said the Northern Alliance is "fully aware of
the urgency" of the situation -- what he termed a need for a
"peaceful process or a political settlement which will bring
about a fully broad-based, multi-ethnic government."
"In the interim transitional government, what is needed
is a leader to lead the country. And the country is in a
state of transition from war to peace -- when I'm saying
war, 23 years of war and the whole country is destroyed," he
said on CNN's "Live in Afghanistan with Christiane Amanpour."
Would the Northern Alliance accept Afghanistan's exiled
king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, in the interim?
"If there was a consensus among all the groups that that
type of leader is the former king, so be it," Abdullah said.
The former king has been living in Italy since a 1973
coup. Shah, now 87, has said he does not intend to return to
power as monarch, but instead wants to serve as a unifying
force for groups opposed to the Taliban.
Abdullah also was asked whether women could now remove
their burkas, the mandated garment under Taliban rule that
covered women from head to toe.
"They have the choice to put on a burka," he said,
adding that women have begun returning to work, schools and
hospitals in areas once controlled by the Taliban. "They
have the choice to take it o
