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Big Powers Mark Out Afghan Future
Monday, November 12, 2001
(15:13 GMT)
The BBC

The draft statement calls on the Afghan people to establish “a broad-based, multiethnic, politically balanced, freely chosen Afghan administration, representative of their aspirations and at peace with its neighbours.”

Location -- Source
Afghanistan's neighbours are due to put their weight behind plans for a broad-based and freely chosen post-Taleban government at a meeting in New York on Monday.

The statement to be adopted by the foreign ministers of the so-called six-plus-two countries -- Afghanistan's neighbours plus Russia and the United States -- backs efforts to oust the Taleban.

But, as the BBC's Eurasia analyst Pam O'Toole reports, the meeting at the UN General Assembly in New York is not expected to specify who should take over if the Taleban are overthrown -- a matter of heated debate.

Afghanistan's neighbours -- China, Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan -- have always argued over Afghanistan's future.
(More: BBC.co.UK News Source)
2001 © The British Broadcasting Corporation.

Dan