U.N. Envoy to Host Meet on Post-Taliban Plans

Foreign ministers from six of Afghanistan’s neighbors, the United States and Russia intend to meet Nov. 12 with the U.N. envoy who has been trying to set up a post-Taliban government in the central Asian nation, U.S. officials said Friday.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the special U.N. representative for Afghanistan, has been holding intensive talks with Afghans and members of the Pakistani government in Islamabad and will visit Iran before returning to New York on Nov. 10.

Both Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi and U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell are expected to participate in the so-called “six-plus-two” meeting, which former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright attended a year ago in another small step toward rapprochement between two old enemies.

Albright’s presence was the first time the foreign ministers of the two countries took part in such a small forum since they broke off relations after the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries.

In addition to the United States and Iran, the foreign ministers of China, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, countries that border Afghanistan, as well as Russia are expected to attend.

The Afghan meeting Nov. 12 takes place at the edges of a rescheduled high-level U.N. General Assembly debate, from Nov. 10 to 16, that President Bush will address.

Before the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States, the six-plus-two group issued statements about a peace settlement. But behind the scenes, the neighbors of Afghanistan were arming either the Taliban or its Northern Alliance opponents, prompting Brahimi to resign from that job in frustration.