The foreign minister of Afghanistan's militarily dominant Northern Alliance, Dr Abdullah Abdullah said, on Thursday, it would be flexible about allowing foreign peacekeepers into post-Taliban Afghanistan. In an interview to a news channel, on progress in this week's Bonn talks on a post-Taliban government, Abdullah said, "Our preference would be an Afghan force, composed of all ethnic groups. But if we have to go for a multinational force, we would consider it positively. There is no rejection for that but a preference otherwise... we are flexible in that regard."
The Northern Alliance has maintained it sees no need for foreign peacekeepers in the country, a position it reiterated at UN-sponsored talks in Bonn, Germany, on the future government of Afghanistan earlier on Wednesday. Abdullah said if Afghanistan's former King Zahir Shah was chosen by a representative body for a role in the country's future government, the Northern Alliance would back the decision.
"If he is chosen by a representative body, that will be acceptable to us," Abdullah said, adding the subject of the ex-king's role had not yet come up in the discussions.
Bureau Report