Afghan-Pakistan Talks Reopen; U.N. Bowing Out

A seventh and probably final round of the indirect peace talks between the foreign ministers of Afghanistan and Pakistan opened here Thursday at the Palais des Nations under the guidance of U.N. Deputy Secretary General Diego Cordovez.

With no possibility of a breakthrough on the key question of fixing a timetable for withdrawal of Soviet forces from the country, this is to be the last effort by Cordovez to bring the two sides closer together. The meetings are expected to last to the end of next week, and if any further Afghan-Pakistani talks are arranged, it will be done directly between Kabul and Islamabad rather than by way of the United Nations. The peace talks here have been held intermittently since 1983.

As usual, a complete news blackout covered the talks, and Cordovez did not even have any opening comments for reporters. Photographers and journalists were ushered into a U.N. conference room where Cordovez, an Ecuadorean diplomat, sat opposite Afghan Foreign Minister Mohammed Dost and his delegation of six. After about five minutes of picture-snapping, Cordovez politely asked all journalists to leave.

About half an hour later, he moved to another conference room for a first meeting with Pakistani Foreign Minister Sahabzada Yaqub Khan and his delegation. Cordovez will continue shuttling back and forth this way until the talks conclude.

‘A Good Atmosphere’

In an interview with the Pakistan news agency released for the opening of the talks, Cordovez expressed hopes that the Soviet announcement of a pullout of six regiments from Afghanistan before the end of the year would create “a good atmosphere” for this round of talks. But the Soviet move clearly does nothing to change the realities of either the military or political situation in Afghanistan.

Cordovez disclosed in the interview that he had suggested a postponement of this round because he thought the timing was probably not appropriate, but he is here in Geneva because, he said, “both sides insisted that the talks go ahead as scheduled.”

However, the Pakistanis say that pressure to keep the talks going has come entirely from the Afghan side, and they have continued largely out of courtesy to the United Nations.

Since 1983, Cordovez has succeeded slowly in shaping the outlines of an agreement on a kind of “Finlandization” of Afghanistan with superpower guarantees and an agreement on non-interference in the country’s internal affairs and its status as a neutral and nonaligned state.

There has also been tentative agreement on the return of 4.6 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran. But the sticking-point remains not only the lack of a Soviet commitment to withdraw its forces, estimated at 115,000 men, but a timetable for withdrawal.