Pakistan on Friday slammed a draft UN arms embargo against Afghanistan's Taliban militia and accused Russia and India of supplying weapons to opposition forces.
Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said the proposed embargo against the Taliban, who rule some 90 percent of the country, but not the opposition Northern Alliance was without precedent in its bias.
"On one hand it seems to sanction the continued supply of arms to the Northern Alliance and it is therefore a prescription for the strengthening of the opposition to the government of Afghanistan," he told AFP.
"I have never come across sanctions from the Security Council which are so one-sided, which seem to be a prescription for fuelling the strife."
He said Pakistan favored a total arms embargo and a peaceful resolution to the Afghan conflict but accused Russia and India of "funneling arms supplies" to opposition commander Ahmad Shah Masood through Central Asia.
The foreign minister said that "according to reports," other anti-Taliban Afghan warlords were living in Russia and "expecting supplies of equipment to start military actions against Afghanistan."
"Is that any way to promote peace, the supply of arms to a group that has very little territory under its control?" he said.
Russia and the United States asked the UN Security Council Thursday to impose an arms embargo and other sanctions on the Taliban to force it to curb its support for terrorism, particularly Osama bin Laden.
They would broaden aviation and financial curbs imposed last year after the Islamic militia refused to extradite bin Laden, a Saudi dissident and billionaire wanted for his alleged involvement in US embassy bombings in East Africa in 1998 -- ISLAMABAD (AFP)
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