<

Pakistan Says Afghan Rulers 'Don't Have Much Time'
Tuesday, October 02, 2001
(5:28 PM ET)
The Associated Press

... probably no other country has tried as hard as Pakistan to talk the Taliban off their collision course with the world's greatest power ...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- AP
Pakistan declared Tuesday that Afghanistan's Taliban rulers "don't have much time" to stave off U.S.-led military strikes, the clearest signal yet that the Pakistani government is washing its hands of the Taliban's fate.

"Pakistan has conveyed to the Taliban what the situation is, what are the dangers, what the international community is expecting them to do," Foreign Ministry spokesman Riaz Mohammed Khan said. "We have told them they don't have much time."

Coming from a country that was once the closest ally of Afghanistan's harshly Islamic rulers -- and which has now pledged itself as a U.S. partner -- the warning carried the weight of finality.

Khan spoke to reporters after U.S. Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin briefed Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, on the status of the investigation into the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, which Washington blames on Saudi exile Osama bin Laden.
(More: The New York Times News Source)
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press

Dan