Turkey wants to see a broad-based government in Afghanistan, but not one including the currently ruling Taliban regime, an adviser to Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said on Thursday.
Sezer held talks earlier in the Tajik capital with ousted Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, whose opposition Northern Alliance is fiercely against elements of the Taliban joining a future administration.
"Turkey's view is that all ethnic groups in Afghanistan should be represented in the broad-based government to be established," said Tacan Ildem, chief foreign policy advisor to the Turkish president.
"The Turkish president also emphasised that the Taliban is not an ethnic group but rather an ideology, a way of administration which does not correspond to the social and ethnic structure of Afghanistan and expectations of the Afghani people, nor does it correspond to the principles of Islam," Ildem added.
"Therefore the Afghani people should focus on having the contribution of all ethnic groups living in Afghanistan for a stable government to be in place," he added.
Turkey has expressed its readiness to host a long-expected crucial meeting between a Rabbani delegation and associates of the Afghan ex-monarch Mohammed Zahir Shah in Ankara.
The 86-year-old Zahir Shah, who currently lives in exile in Rome, has been at the centre of international efforts to form a broad-based post-Taliban government in Afghanistan.
Rabbani, who was ousted from power by the Taliban in 1996, is the political leader of the Northern Alliance, now fighting the Islamist militia, and is internationally recognized as head of Afghanistan's state.
Turkey, which is the only member of NATO with a majority Muslim population, has also announced it was sending a special 90-man team to Afghanistan to help the US military campaign against the Taliban -- DUSHANBE, (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
