Russia sends envoy team to Afghanistan

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, NOV. 16. An advance team of Russian Government officials headed on Friday for Afghanistan to speed up the process of political settlement in that country.

The Interfax news agency quoted Russia's Defence Minister, Mr. Sergei Ivanov, who heads an interagency co- ordination group on Afghanistan, as saying that the team, representing the Foreign, Defence and Emergency Situation Ministries, will ``establish working contacts with the leadership of the legitimate Government of Afghanistan.''

Russia dispatched its team to Afghanistan a day after the Russian President, Mr. Vladimir Putin, on a visit to the United States, joined his American counterpart, Mr. George W Bush, in calling for speeding up the creation of a new administration in Afghanistan. Moscow has supported the Burhanuddin Rabbani Government as the legitimate Government of Afghanistan. However, a senior Russian diplomat said the changed situation called for a new coalition government.

Russia believes the new political dispensation in Afghanistan should be established in two stages, the diplomat said at an off- the-record briefing for foreign correspondents here today. First, a transitional government should be formed that would then pave the way for the formation of a permanent administration based on proportionate ethnic representation. The diplomat pointed out that Russia and the U.S. had agreed there would be ``no Taliban as a political force at the negotiating table in Afghanistan.'' However, he said Pashtun tribal leaders who had not been implicated in criminal activities could not be excluded from the political settlement. ``A considerable part of Pashtuns have been active in the Taliban one way or another,'' the Russian diplomat said.

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Section  : International
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