A top US diplomat was due in Moscow late Monday to discuss the threat of violence spilling over from civil war-torn Afghanistan.
US Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering will open talks Tuesday with a Russian delegation co-chaired by former foreign intelligence chief and current First Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Vyacheslav Trubnikov.
"Reports of the (anti-Taliban) Northern Alliance counter-offensive will certainly be taken into account," a foreign ministry source told Interfax.
Afghan officials said Friday that forces loyal to former defense minister Ahmad Shah Masood, who mounted the counter-offensive, were attacking positions of the ruling Taliban militia around Taloqan, capital of the Takhar province.
Masood's counter-attack was aimed at recapturing strategic areas lost to the Taliban around the northeastern region since early September. The hardline Taliban controls around 90 percent of Afghan territory.
The Russian source further said Pickering's talks would also touch upon "recent developments, in particular the terrorist act on the US warship in the port of Yemen."
A blast ripped Thursday through a US Navy destroyer in the Yemeni port of Aden, killing 17 people -- MOSCOW (AFP)
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