U.S. Focuses on Future of Afghanistan

After setting in motion a post-Taliban strategy with a pivotal role for the United Nations, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is launching a worldwide appeal for financial and humanitarian support to rebuild war-ravaged Afghanistan.

Powell wrapped up two days of intense diplomacy in South Asia on Wednesday and will begin the second phase of his effort today during talks with 20 Pacific Rim counterparts at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Shanghai.

The issue has special urgency, Powell said, because both the normally brutal Afghan winter and Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, begin in late November. He said the United States wants to help Afghans “reconstruct a life for themselves.”

But Powell denied that the United States would become enmeshed in “nation-building” with troops, as it has done in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s main republic. “This is helping the international community helping the people of Afghanistan to create hopeful conditions within the country so that they are not vulnerable to this kind of threat again in the future,” Powell said.

Despite Asia’s economic woes, the United States is looking for significant contributions, especially from wealthier countries such as Japan, as a sign of the region’s support for both the U.S.-led war on terrorism and a beleaguered Asian neighbor.

As Powell forges ahead on the economic and humanitarian front, his staff is beginning intense negotiations with the United Nations on Afghanistan’s political future.

Because of its long experience in places such as Cambodia and East Timor, Powell said, the world body is best suited to oversee the transition.

The United Nations would provide “a sense of order” while a new, broad-based “assemblage of individuals and leaders representing all aspects of Afghan society” gets organized and develops the capability to govern, he told reporters traveling with him.

The administration’s point man in efforts to foster a post-Taliban government, State Department policy planning chief Richard Haass, meets in New York today with Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. specialist on Afghanistan.

“This is what the U.N. does. It also gives a vehicle for all the players to talk to as [the Taliban collapse] gets closer to reality,” a senior State Department official traveling with Powell said Wednesday.

Balancing Politics

State Department officials in Washington say that the U.S. objective is to devise a broad-based interim government that can balance Afghanistan’s bewildering ethnic politics.

U.S. objectives are sweeping: End the use of Afghanistan as a haven for terrorists, prevent the country from destabilizing the region, and stop production and export of opium and heroin.

Pakistan clearly expects to play a major role in forming a new government for Afghanistan. But a State Department official in Washington said the United States also must balance the interests of Afghanistan’s other neighbors as well as the country’s often warring tribes and ethnic groups.

Analysts say that the challenges are daunting. “Just to say it’s the U.N.’s business doesn’t work,” said Richard Murphy, the State Department’s Middle East and South Asia chief during the Reagan administration.

“The U.S. doing it single-handedly doesn’t work either,” he added. “Pakistan, Iran and probably India have to play a role. The Pakistanis have made their role dominant since the mid-1990s. They are allergic to the idea that the Northern Alliance will be swept in because it is full of minorities and is supported by Iran and India.”

Powell expressed confidence that the Taliban regime is now isolated by all countries in the wider Asian neighborhood and has no chance of maintaining political control.

“When you go from Iran clockwise to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and come all the way around, they are surrounded with no friends. This is putting incredible pressure on the regime,” Powell said.

At the United Nations, Brahimi said that despite the complexity of the problem, the world organization would welcome the chance to help.

He said the first priority would be ensuring that there is enough food. He said 1,000 tons of supplies were reaching Afghanistan daily, about half of what is needed.

Brahimi stressed that the United Nations was not interested in assuming the role of a transitional administration or of a peacekeeper.

“We will definitely be doing as much as we can. That is a different thing from actually providing a direct administration for the country,” he said. “The Afghans are a very proud people. They don’t like to be ordered around by foreigners.”

The delicate nature of diplomacy in South Asia was underscored Wednesday as Powell held talks here with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and other senior officials amid renewed tensions between India and Pakistan over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. At least 36 people have been killed recently.

Pakistani forces were placed on a state of high alert Wednesday after what military officials in Islamabad, the capital, claimed were movements by Indian army and air force units in Kashmir.

“We have information wherein India has moved troops and relocated some air force assets which may prove to be a threat,” said government spokesman Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi.

High Level of Alert

The level of alert was the highest since the two countries skirmished in the Kargil area of Kashmir in May 1999. It followed the surprise shelling of Pakistani positions in Sialkot and Rawalakot on Monday, just as Powell arrived in the region.

The tensions between the South Asian neighbors, both of which are nuclear capable, could not have come at a worse time for the U.S.-led military efforts in Afghanistan. Although India and Pakistan have joined the anti-terrorism coalition, U.S. officials were hoping that they would put their hostilities on hold.

As the main front-line state in the military campaign in Afghanistan, Pakistan fears a flare-up on a second front, with India. The Bush administration has exerted significant pressure on the South Asian rivals to prevent new hostilities.

After talks with Powell, Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh said the South Asian nations would learn how to live together as good neighbors. But he also said the two sides “cannot push the pace” of rapprochement.

“The two people have to learn, have to forget the past, have to forget the mistakes of the past 50 years, and we have to learn to live together as we address what are our real enemies of today--poverty, want--as the two countries are enabled to move together in the 21st century,” he told a joint news conference.

Powell said he encouraged both nations to continue their dialogue and to take steps to reduce tension.

After Powell left, Vajpayee said that India had no plans to resume peace talks with Pakistan as long as the disputed Kashmir is the dominant issue on the agenda.

But Powell did manage to ease India’s anxiety over the sudden warming of U.S.-Pakistan relations after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

“The prospects have never been brighter for our cooperation,” Powell told a news conference. “I leave India confident that the United States and India stand together against the scourge of international terrorism, strengthened by our shared democratic values and ready as never before to work together for freedom, prosperity, and security in the region and the world.”

Vajpayee will visit the United States on Nov. 9 for talks with President Bush, Powell announced.

*

Times staff writers Rone Tempest in Islamabad, Norman Kempster in Washington and John J. Goldman at the United Nations contributed to this report.