BBC - Afghan conference set for Berlin The UN is hopeful the Northern Alliance will join the talks

Diplomatic sources at the United Nations say the UN envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, is planning to convene a meeting of Afghanistan's ethnic groups in Berlin on Saturday.

It is the first time a date and venue has been specified for the meeting, which is intended to be the first step towards the establishment of a broad-based transitional government for Afghanistan following the removal of the Taleban from power in Kabul.

The sources say Mr Brahimi is expected to make a formal announcement to the UN Security Council later on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, officials from about a dozen countries are to hold discussions in Washington on Afghanistan's post-war reconstruction.

The United States and Japan will host the talks, which will begin the process of assessing Afghanistan's most pressing post-war needs, such as agriculture, water, education and mine clearance.

Correspondents say the talks are not directly linked to the negotiations over Afghanistan's political future but they are designed to show the commitment of the United States and its partners to Afghanistan's long-term future.

European Union foreign ministers have already promised to give reconstruction aid to Afghanistan, but only if the country's new government respects human rights and international law.

In other developments:

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the US opposes any deals to let Taleban leader Mullah Omar escape Afghanistan Four journalists die in Afghanistan after gunmen ambush a convoy in which they were travelling George W Bush holds a Ramadan dinner at the White House for officials from 53 Muslim nations Kabul's Bakhtar cinema reopens for the first time in five years to a sell-out audience Thousands of Afghan refugees are continuing to cross into Pakistan daily and more are expected, according to the UN refugee agency Authorities in Uzbekistan obstruct the first British and French aid deliveries to northern Afghanistan The BBC's Matt Frei, who has arrived in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, says the Taleban appear to be in control, but there are thousands of refugees in previously unknown camps The deployment to Afghanistan of thousands of British soldiers is delayed after "discouraging" reports from advance troops

As efforts to secure support for a multi-ethnic political conference continued, Mr Brahimi's deputy, Fransesc Vendrell, began a fourth day of talks in the Afghan capital on Tuesday with key figures in the Northern Alliance and other tribal and faction leaders.

Former Afghan President and Northern Alliance leader Burhanuddin Rabbani has yet to give a formal response to the invitation to join talks, but UN officials say they are hopeful he will do so.

BBC UN correspondent Greg Barrow says it is no small achievement to decide on a date and venue for a meeting, as events on the ground have rapidly overtaken the slow pace of diplomacy.

In the south-east of Kabul, various Pashtun tribes are reportedly beginning to form a coherent, unified position on the shape of a future Afghanistan.

The BBC's Kabul correspondent, Kate Clark, says the tribes are powerful, well-organised, well armed and have the force of history behind them.

She says they are pushing a strongly peace-oriented agenda, demanding a UN-sponsored loya jirga - a grand assembly of the nation's elders - to choose a new leader for Afghanistan.

Breakthrough

The prospect of an inter-Afghan forum was given a boost after the Northern Alliance relented in its demand that talks should only take place in the Afghan capital.

The concession followed discussions in Uzbekistan between US envoy James Dobbins and Northern Alliance Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah.

The United States, which has led the campaign to topple the Taleban, welcomed the Northern Alliance's decision.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said he was "very pleased" and called for talks to be held soon.

Washington and its allies fear that a government dominated by the Northern Alliance could prompt the kind of factional fighting that ripped Kabul apart in the early 1990s.

The international drive to build an interim administration has been gathering pace with the arrival in Afghanistan of Russian and British delegations.

Both Russia and Iran, which has close ties to the Northern Alliance, are planning to re-open embassies in Kabul soon.

-- Anonymous, November 20, 2001