UN prepares for earliest return

While opposition Northern Alliance forces continue to reap significant gains on Taliban-held territory, including the capture of Mazar-e Sharif, Herat, Jalalabad and the Afghan capital, Kabul, the United Nations told IRIN on Friday it would send international staff members back into the country at the earliest time feasible.

"We are watching the situation closely," a UN spokeswoman, Stephanie Bunker, in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, told IRIN. "Pending conducive security conditions, we are looking to get our international staff in as soon as possible," she explained.

Bunker's comments follow a positive security assessment last week in the northeastern Badakhshan Province, where Northern Alliance control is strongest, concluding that the situation was favourable for the return of international staff.

As of Thursday, five foreign UN staff members had returned to Faizabad (Feyzabad) including members of the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). One international staff member from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) was also expected, and more staff were expected to follow.

Asked when WFP would be sending in international staff members into areas previously administered by the Taliban, the agency's spokesman, Khalid Mansour, told IRIN: "We hope to have more people in the next coming days pending security clearance. We already have people in Faizabad."

Following security assessments over the weekend, set to soon follow was the deputy special representative for the United Nations Special Mission for Afghanistan (UNSMA), Francesc Vendrell, the most senior UN official to go back into Kabul since 11 September. He is expected to lead a team of UN political and humanitarian staff back to the country within the next few days.

"This is a very significant event," the UNSMA political affairs officer, Robin Barnwell, told IRIN on Friday. "The UN are opening the political and humanitarian offices in Afghanistan, reaffirming their commitment to help the Afghan people in every way they can."

The primary task of this advance party was to assess the situation on the ground in Kabul and to hold extensive talks with the Northern Alliance, inviting them to a conference of the Afghan group which Secretary General Kofi Annan had asked to be convened at the earliest possible opportunity, he explained. "In reopening our offices, we hope this is the beginning, and we will expand our operations throughout the country, security conditions permitting," Barnwell added.

Explaining the objective of his mission on Thursday, Vendrell told reporters: "In my visit to Afghanistan, I intend to spend some time talking to the various leaders of the country, listening to their views and to their plans, but also asking them to listen to our views, and our views have the full support of the international community."

Asked what role former King Zahir Shah would have in the next government of Afghanistan, Vendrell said he was convinced, as were the United Nations, that he would play a part in the future of the country. Citing an informal poll conducted by UNSMA, he said support for the former king was "overwhelming". As for criticism by some members of the Northern Alliance, he added: "We are trying to help the Afghan people start some kind of interim administration that would eventually lead to a provisional government."

Reaffirming the United Nation's position, he said this transitional or interim body should be as broadly representative as possible of the various ethnic groups. "The final decision lies in the hands of the Afghans, and that cannot be done immediately - it will take some time," he explained.