Northern Alliance top delegate Yunis Qanuni threatened on Saturday to ignore his hesitating leader Burhanuddin Rabbani and strike a deal with exile groups at talks in Bonn on a future Afghan government.
Qanuni said he would seek popular support for a deal if Rabbani, who the United Nations still recognises as president of Afghanistan, did not provide a list of names to be appointed to the interim government discussed at the talks.
He hinted that the Alliance, a coalition of Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks and other ethnic minorities that controls most of the country, could split if Rabbani did not fax a list soon.

"If he fails to do this, God forbid, all that remains for us is a vote by the people," he said, without explaining how this would be done.

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"This is a very golden opportunity which must be seized," he said of the deal on the table in Bonn.
Qanuni, who is also interior minister and part of a new generation of younger Afghan politicians, also said some leaders in Kabul were "still interested in maintaining the old order."

That was a dig at the white-bearded Rabbani, who has dragged his feet both before and during the talks which seem certain to end with a deal that would sideline him and bring back former king Zaheer Shah as head of state.
Qanuni confirmed that Rabbani, the former Kabul University theologian he respectfully referred to as "ustad" (the professor), had failed to provide a candidates' list and that this was the reason for the delay at the Bonn talks.
"We hope that Rabbani will understand the current situation and the sensitivity of issues and take the people's interests into account," he said.
"If this doesn't happen, the only remaining solution is for us to go directly to the people and seek their vote," he added. "Whatever they want, we feel obliged to pursue it."
He did not elaborate on how this could be done, but it appeared he was threatening to strike a deal with the exiles here and then try to put it to some kind of vote in Kabul if Rabbani opposed it.
The three exile groups -- the Rome group supporting Zaheer Shah, the Pakistan-based Peshawar group and the Iran-backed Cyprus group -- have drawn up their lists and are waiting for the Alliance to put forward its proposals.
Qanuni, Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and Defence Minister Mohammad Fahim are a new generation in their 40s, keen to abolish the warlordism of traditional Afghan politics and introduce a modern democratic structure.
Qanuni said Afghanistan's current uncertainty "is not in anybody's interest, not of our people and not of international peace".

People wanted peace, he said, and the Alliance did not want the fighting to go on. "When we feel that what the people of Afghanistan want and what serves the interests of the country is one thing and the wishes of these individuals are another, then we will definitely stand by the side of the people and be with them," he said.
While Qanuni did not name the old-style politicians, delegation members named Rabbani and Islamic fundamentalist Abdul Rasul Sayyaf as two leaders from the 1980s anti-Soviet war who were out of step with the new situation in Afghanistan.
Bureau Report