Los Angeles Times
KOENIGSWINTER, Germany — Weary of war, even one they appear to be winning, Afghanistan’s rival factions stunned their hosts and foreign patrons on the first day of U.N.-brokered talks here by broadly agreeing Tuesday on the two crucial issues of securing peace and sharing power.
While contention may still loom as the 30-odd ethnic and political leaders tackle the details of naming an interim post-Taliban government and imposing law and order, the usually fractious figures demonstrated unexpectedly common commitment to ending decades of repression and bloodshed.
Those privy to the talks at the Petersberg summit confirmed the general consensus among summit delegates that Mohammad Zaher Shah, the 87-year-old former monarch who has been living in Rome since his 1973 ouster, should serve as titular head of state until a permanent leader can be chosen.
"Everybody sees the ex-king as a rallying point and hopes that he will be willing and able to play that role," added James Dobbins, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan. "The one element which was common to every group I met with, all four of them, was a common vision of how the king would fit into this."
The four groups represented were also reported to be close to accepting the concept of a multinational peacekeeping force, rather than the all-Afghan security deployment that the dominant Northern Alliance had previously insisted on.
Younis Qanooni, the Northern Alliance’s interior minister and head of its delegation here, set minds at ease at the start of the talks when he professed his faction "ready for a transfer of power to the real representatives of the Afghan people."
Because Northern Alliance forces now control most of Afghanistan, there had been fears that the battlefield victors would rather sit on their spoils than share power with the other factions.
By next spring, U.N. organizers hope the Afghans can convene a "loya jirga," a council of tribal elders, to name a provisional president and parliament and set out a framework for a democratic constitution. In a year or two, they hope to see elections in which all adults would participate, ending Afghan women’s decade of disenfranchisement.
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