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Iran Calls for Coalition Government in Kabul
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan, Oct 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi ruled out a role for moderate Taliban leaders in a future Afghan government in talks Friday with Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmonov.
The Taliban have "a dark past and have no place in the future government of Afghanistan," Kharazi told reporters after meeting the Tajik president in Dushanbe.
He stressed, however, that the Taliban should not be identified exclusively with the country's Pushtun ethnic majority that, he said, should be represented in the future Afghan government.
"Afghanistan's future lies in creating a broad-based government that would include all ethnic groups, without any external influence," Kharazi said.
Kharazi arrived in Dushanbe Friday to discuss the situation in Afghanistan with Rakhmonov and other top officials from the Central Asia region.
Iran would support a coalition government in neighboring Afghanistan if the ruling Taliban are overthrown, the Iranian official news agency IRNA reported.
"Plans imposed on Afghanistan from abroad will not settle the problems, and it is up to the Afghan people to decide their future," Kharazi said.
Kharazi, meeting with the Afghan opposition's foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah late Thursday before traveling to Dushanbe, said Iran favored "a popular and representative government of all the parties" in Afghanistan, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
In his meeting with Kharazi Thursday, Abdullah reviewed the future plans of the anti-Taliban opposition waiting in the wings to take over if the Taliban are overthrow, IRNA reported.
Abdullah, at the head of a delegation of the opposition Northern Alliance, including military chief General Mohammad Qassim Fahim, was to hold further talks Friday in Tehran and also meet other Afghan factions in Iran.
Although Iran was quick to condemn the September 11th attacks on the United States, it is also opposed to the U.S.-led military strikes against the Taliban, despite Tehran's own hostility to Afghanistan's rulers.
Tehran fears that if the Taliban regime is overthrown in the wake of U.S.-led attacks, either a pro-American government under former king Mohammed Zahir Shah, or a pro-Pakistani regime under moderate elements of the Taliban, could be installed in Kabul.
Kharazi and Rakhmonov discussed the wider threat to regional security posed by the war in Afghanistan as well as humanitarian aid to civilians caught in the conflict.
"As a neighbor of Afghanistan, Iran hopes to see peace established as soon as possible in a country whose people have suffered from war for too many years," the Iranian foreign minister said earlier.
Kharazi also slammed as unacceptable the methods employed by the U.S.-led coalition to battle the Taliban, as "U.S. tactics in Afghanistan involve unjustified civilian casualties."
Rakhmnov, for his part, ruled out the possibility that Tajikistan might offer bases for Washington's use in the campaign, saying that placing more troops and ammunition in areas surrounding Afghanistan "could lead to more instability".
Kharazi was also due to meet Russian Emergency Situation Minister Sergei Shoigu, who arrived in Dushanbe Friday for talks with counterparts from Tajikstan and other Central Asian countries of the former Soviet Union.
The emergency ministers discussed the humanitarian campaign aimed at delivering aid to Afghan civilians, which was fast becoming "long-term and large-scale," Shoigu said.
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