With Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda doggedly holding on to their ground at Tora Bora mountains closer to Pakistan borders, President Pervez Musharraf has had a telephonic talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, US Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Besides other issues, officials here said, Musharraf discussed the installation of the interim government in Afghanistan on December 22 with the three leaders on Thursday. The telephone talks follow the visit of UN special envoy to Afghanistan, Lakdhar Brahimi, to Kabul and Islamabad and the quite entry of head of interim government Hamid Karzai to Kabul.
Brahimi left for New York on Thursday and the UN Security Council was expected to meet shortly to formally pass a resolution deputing a multinational force to Kabul. Musharraf`s telephone talks with Blair, Powell and Annan follows a grave situation developing on the Pakistan-Afghan border as al-Qaeda and bin Laden continued to defy the US and Afghan forces despite heavy bombing.
The hold up is seen as causing great anxiety to Pakistan government as the fighting was taking place very close to its borders and it was forced to commit hundreds of its regular troops to seal the porous boundaries. According to the officials, the four leaders also discussed the deployment of multinational force in Kabul – a long-standing demand of Musharraf.
Bureau Report