Afghan Accord Calls for Soviet Pullout in 9 Months

Negotiators in the U.N.-sponsored Afghanistan peace talks agreed today that the Soviet Union should withdraw its 115,000 soldiers from the country within nine months.

Afghan Foreign Minister Abdul Wakil announced the agreement and told reporters that half the troops will leave within the first three months.

Wakil said the accord was reached during 2 1/2 hours of meetings that U.N. mediator Diego Cordovez conducted separately today with Afghan and Pakistani representatives.

“Nothing important stands in the way of concluding a settlement,” Wakil said. The accord on the timetable had been expected after the gap between the two sides’ positions had narrowed from an original 43 months to two months in almost six years of negotiations.

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev said last month that Moscow will bring home its troops within 10 months starting May 15 provided a settlement is signed in Geneva by March 15.

Helping Fight Guerrillas

Soviet troops entered Afghanistan in 1979 and replaced the communist government with another communist regime. They have been helping the government fight anti-communist Muslim guerrillas.

A new U.N. report said success at the Geneva talks may leave a primary problem unresolved: the return of more than 5 million Afghan refugees who fled the war to neighboring Pakistan and Iran.

The head of the Pakistani delegation, acting Foreign Minister Zain Noorani, told reporters that his government wants a broad-based transitional government to be set up but he would not specify when that should be done.

“We are firmly convinced that a settlement without creating circumstances of peace and stability in Afghanistan will not persuade 5 million Afghan refugees . . . to return,” he said.

The future makeup of the Kabul government is outside the scope of the negotiations.