Special envoys from former Afghan king Mohammed Zahir Shah on Monday began talks with Pakistani leaders on a post-Taliban scenario in Afghanistan.
A Pakistani foreign ministry official said former Afghan foreign minister Hedayat Amin Arsala was leading the delegation, which is also understood to include Haji Abdul Khaleq Farahi and Rahim Sherzoy.
He said the former king's envoys had started talks with Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar and were scheduled to meet President Pervez Musharraf later in the afternoon.
The discussions come hours before the arrival here of US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Powell will meet Musharraf to discuss the US-led military action against the Taliban militia and alleged terrorists based in Afghanistan, as well as Pakistan's tense relations with nuclear rival India.
Details of Powell's itinerary have been kept secret amid fears of reprisals for US air strikes against the Taliban, now in their second week.
Powell is also expected to visit New Delhi en route to the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum in Shanghai.
Zahir Shah's delegation left Rome on Saturday night carrying a message to the Pakistani leader from the former king who has lived in Italy since his ouster in a coup in 1973.
Musharraf earlier this month invited Zahir Shah to send a mission to discuss a post-Taliban Afghanistan should the ruling militia be toppled by the current US-led military strikes.
But royal family sources said the visit had upset the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance which blames Pakistan for supporting the Taliban since its emergence in 1994.
Pakistan is now the only country to formally recognise the Taliban regime as the legitimate government in Afghanistan, but loosened its ties with the Islamic militia in support of the US coalition against terrorism following the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
In exchange for Pakistan's support Musharraf has demanded a say over the future "political dispensation" in Afghanistan, and has made it clear he wants a "friendly" government in Kabul.
That would mean a government dominated by Afghanistan's Pashtun ethnic majority, represented currently by the Taliban. Senior UN officials have also said the future government must be "representative" and "broad-based."
"It has been the consistent position of Pakistan that we support the establishment of a broad-based government which can bring peace and stability to Afghanistan," Pakistani foreign office spokesman Riaz Mohammad Khan said.
"On the question of the Northern Alliance, our position has been that any effort for a group or outsiders to impose a government on Afghanistan will not help the situation.
"If we see that any group which is not representative of the population of Afghanistan has been imposed, then that is not going to bring peace and stability."
The opposition alliance, made of groups from the Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara ethnic minorities, agreed on October 1 to form a supreme council under the king's auspices which can elect a head of state and transitional government.
Zahir Shah, who has also met US officials in the past month, is internationally regarded as the single unifying force who can bind Afghanistan's disparate forces into a cohesive administration.
The success of such an administration is also widely seen as being dependent on a massive input of international aid to build up the country's war-ravaged infrastructure and economy.
UN involvement has been mooted in the creation of security forces for a new regime, but it could prove to be an onerous task establishing any force from the remnants of the warring factions -- Islamabad, (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
