WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- The United Nations has invited 18 Afghan notables to Bonn, Germany, to attend a conference on their country's future, U.N. sources told United Press International.
The conference, which begins in the former German capital on Monday, will try to develop a consensus on a new transitional government for Afghanistan.
According to U.N. sources there will be 7 representatives each from the Northern Alliance and from the groups supporting the deposed Afghan king, Mohammed Zahir Shah. Two representatives each will also be taken from the Afghan groups that met in the Pakistani city of Peshawar and in Cyprus last month to consider proposals for a broad-based government.
The United Nations deputy envoy for Afghanistan, Francesc Vendrell, convinced the alliance to participate in the conference when he visited Kabul earlier this week.
Led by former Afghan president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, the alliance now controls Kabul and most of Afghanistan, triggering fears that it may try to rule the country on its own.
An attempt by Rabbani to rule the country without involving other ethnic and religious groups led to a civil strife, which killed 50,000 people in Kabul alone. Rabbani's government ended when the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996.
All seven Northern Alliance representatives attending the Bonn conference will be from ethnic minorities like Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. All seven delegates from the ex-king's side will be Pashtuns. Pashtun is the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. The former is a Pashtun and so are most Taliban leaders. The Northern Alliance represents ethnic and religious minorities.
Those representing the Peshawar groups will be Pashtuns too while those from Cyprus will be non-Pashtuns. Thus the conference will be equally divided between the majority and minority ethnic groups.
"We want them to realize that they need to cooperate with each other if they want to end more than 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan," said an official at the U.N. Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Assistance in Afghanistan. "Rabbani tried to run the country without Pashtuns, he failed. The Taliban tried to do so without involving the minorities and they led it to a disaster."
The U.N. secretary general's special envoy for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, is expected to chair the Bonn conference. It will be followed by a series of meetings aimed at installing an interim government in Kabul for two years. The United Nations hopes to hold elections in Afghanistan after the interim government completes its term and bring in a democratic set up.
No Taliban will be invited to the Bonn conference or other meetings.
The Bonn talks, said a U.N. diplomat, will remain search for a solution to the Afghan dispute within the parameters of the Nov. 14 U.N. Security Council resolution, which falls for a broad-based, multi-ethnic interim government, leading to general elections.
The Northern Alliance in Kabul announced Wednesday that it would include at least one woman in its delegation to inter-Afghan talks in Bonn. The ex-king also is sending two women.
It is already a major development since last week when the Taliban regime in Kabul banned weapons from public life, preventing them even from attending schools or consulting male physicians.
U.N. sources said that no representatives from the countries neighboring Afghanistan will be invited to the conference. The move aims at reducing foreign interference in Afghanistan.
