KOENIGSWINTER, Germany?Afghan factions meeting in Germany pushed forward with talks on post Taliban rule Monday after the northern alliance named four prominent figures it said should be considered to lead an interim administration.
Abdur Rasool Sayyaf, the northern alliance’s deputy prime minister, said in Kabul that the names it submitted include Hamid Karzai, a prominent anti-Taliban commander, and Abdul Sattar Sirat, a close aide to exiled former king Mohammad Zaher Shah.
Also named were Sibgatullah Mujadeddi, who briefly was transitional president in 1992, and Syed Ahmed Gailani, another supporter of the former king.
The suggestions were the first official word on candidates for a 29-member executive council proposed by the United Nations to govern Afghanistan for an initial six months.
With a U.N. blueprint for Afghanistan’s political future on the table, an accord on the makeup of the governing body was the key unresolved issue for the four factions at the talks?the northern alliance, the ex-king’s supporters and two smaller exile groups.
Karzai has the advantage of representing the Pashtuns, Afghanistan’s biggest ethnic group.
A moderate Muslim, he came under attack by Taliban forces a few weeks ago?before the Taliban were driven from most of the country?when he tried to rally Afghans to support a new government. He is currently commanding forces trying to take Kandahar, the last Taliban stronghold.
U.N. mediators piped in a phone call from Karzai to delegates in Germany when the conference opened last week. He appealed for unity and called the meeting “the path toward salvation,” the United Nations said.
Sirat has strong support in the former king’s delegation, which he heads. An ethnic Uzbek and Islamic scholar who lives in the United States, he was justice minister during the king’s reign decades ago.
The U.N. plan envisions the interim executive council as well as an independent council of legal experts to convene a tribal gathering, or loya jirga, within six months.
The loya jirga would establish a transitional administration to govern for 18 months, paving the way for a democratic constitution and eventual elections, according to a copy of the draft.
Left open in the plan is the role of Zaher Shah, who has lived in exile in Rome since he was deposed in 1973. Diplomats say the monarch remains popular in Afghanistan and could convene the first loya jirga.
The northern alliance’s foreign minister, Dr. Abdullah, said last week that his side was seeking no role in the interim administration for its nominal leader in Kabul, Burhanuddin Rabbani.
But a proposal by Rabbani for a leadership council that would stand above the interim executive body?with himself in a leading role?could further complicate the talks.
“My name would be for the leadership council,” the Washington Post quoted Rabbani as saying in an interview.
It was the latest sign of a rift between Rabbani, who was Afghanistan’s president from 1992 to 1996, and northern alliance delegates at the talks.
Secluded at a hilltop hotel near Bonn, delegates made progress Sunday when U.N. mediators proposed the outline of a political deal, distilling ideas voiced by the various sides.