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Tuesday November 13, 7:30 AM

Powell urges "speed, speed, speed" in UN efforts on Afghanistan

The United States and Russia urged the United Nations to move quickly to help set up a new government in Afghanistan as opposition forces closed in on the capital Kabul, diplomats said.

"Basically his message was speed, speed, speed," a senior US official said after Secretary of State Colin Powell held talks with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and other members of the so-called "six-plus-two" group.

The group also included Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and his counterparts from the six countries that border on Afghanistan.

Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Sergei Lavrov, told reporters "there is a need for a very strong political process parallel to the military process" in Afghanistan.

Annan told reporters that his special envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, would "step up his work consulting the Afghan parties."

But Brahimi, standing beside Annan, acknowledged that the UN had no control over the opposition forces which have swept across northern Afghanistan with extraordinary speed since they captured the city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Friday.

"We are not part of what is happening on the ground," Brahimi said.

In Afghanistan, a spokesman for the Northern Alliance said the Taliban abandoned their positions north of Kabul in the face of a two-pronged advance by 7,000-8,000 opposition soldiers.

The alliance forces were almost completely in control of the Shomali plain outside Kabul and "there are no major obstacles remaining in front of us," spokesman Waisudin Salik said.

The alliance also chalked up gains elsewhere, notably taking the western city of Herat, an ancient Silk Road trade stop and Afghanistan's wealthiest city with thriving links to Iran.

Pakistan, one of the six-plus-two countries, has said it would look with extreme disfavour on the Northern Alliance taking power in Afghanistan.

Annan said the six-plus-two meeting "assessed the fast-evolving situation and talked about the humanitarian, the political and the need to form a broad-based Afghan government."

The group "stressed the need for speed, and that as events are moving very fast we need to try to bring the political aspects in line with military developments on the ground," he said.

Powell, Ivanov and the foreign ministers of the three other permanent members of the Security Council -- Jack Straw of Britain, Tang Jiaxuan of China and Hubert Vedrine of France -- later issued a statement emphasising the UN's "central role in international efforts" to resolve the Afghan conflict.

The council is to discuss Afghanistan on Wednesday and is likely to adopt a Franco-British draft resolution by the end of the week.

In a joint statement, the five permanent members said the UN should "continue to take the lead in assisting Afghans in the formation of a broad-based, multi-ethnic government which is fully representative of the Afghan people to replace the Taliban regime."

The statement echoed the wording of a communique issued by the six-plus-two group, which condemned "the export of international terrorism by the al-Qaeda network and the ruling Taliban authorities for allowing the continued use of Afghan territory for such terrorist activities."

It said the new government should by formed "by Afghans from both within Afghanistan and from among the Afghan diaspora", which includes an estimated four million refugees living in Iran and Pakistan.

Those countries are members of the six-plus-two group, along with China and three former Soviet republics in Central Asia: Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

The six-plus-two further pledged to support UN efforts to bring humanitarian relief to those refugees and to people inside Afghanistan, seven million of whom need help to survive the imminent winter, according to UN officials.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 2001