UN points way for Afghan factions

The talks had dragged on day and night

The United Nations has presented a draft agreement on the immediate future of Afghanistan to the four groups of Afghan delegates who are meeting near the German city of Bonn.

Lakhdar Brahimi asked the delegates to consider the proposals on forming an interim cabinet and come back with any amendments.

There was a feeling a simpler structure would be easier to achieve while everybody was here

James Dobbins, US special envoy to the talks

The development came after the idea of simultaneously agreeing an interim parliament was abandoned as being too complicated.

A UN spokesman at the conference centre told the BBC's diplomatic correspondent, Barnaby Mason, that Mr Brahimi's proposals had come after exhaustive discussions aimed at reconciling the positions of the factions.

The factions are due to meet again at about 0800 GMT on Sunday to discuss them.

Roles for everyone

Diplomats in touch with the negotiations expect the head of the executive to be a Pashtun from Afghanistan's largest ethnic group.

They believe the Northern Alliance of Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras has accepted this, and one possibility is that the 87-year-old former monarch, Mohammed Zahir Shah, will formally nominate an agreed candidate to lead the executive.

Mr Brahimi believes the document meets the interests of all the factions

Prominent members of the Northern Alliance, which has led the military campaign against the Taleban on the ground, can be expected to take several key ministries which they already run de facto, such as foreign affairs and the interior.

According to our correspondent, as well as establishing the interim executive, Mr Brahimi's document may also set out terms on which a multinational force could be deployed to ensure security and neutrality in Kabul.

In other developments:

• Canadian journalist Ken Hechtman, is handed over by the Taleban at the Pakistani border after going missing in southern Afghanistan several days ago
• More than 80 survivors are reported to have come out alive from the ruins of the Qala-e-Jhangi fort-prison near Mazar-e Sharif
• Taleban leader Mullah Omar is reported to have demanded a fight to the death to defend Kandahar, which is under repeated US attack
• Northern Alliance foreign minister Dr Abdullah says Osama Bin Laden is not in the Tora Bora cave complex near the eastern city of Jalalabad but in one of a number of complexes in the Kandahar area
• US Secretary of State Colin Powell seeks to calm speculation Iraq will be the next target, saying no decision has been taken on the next phase in the war against terror

The Northern Alliance has in the last few days moderated its opposition to international peacekeepers.

The document is just the first stage in Mr Brahimi's plans, with a traditional Afghan assembly - a Loya Jerga - intended to meet in a few months' time to remould Afghanistan's institutions and lay the ground for a new constitution and elections.

Alliance bends

UN officials had originally hoped that agreement on the interim government could be reached on Saturday.

Progress had been held up by divisions within the Northern Alliance until its foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, announced that it was ready to transfer power to a transitional authority not headed by its leader, Burhanuddin Rabbani.

Afghan women have had a voice at the talks

A BBC correspondent in Kabul says the popular mood in Kabul is overwhelmingly in favour of some sort of UN peacekeeping mission as the best guarantee of stability and Mr Rabbani's objections to peacekeepers and a broad-based government are out of touch with people's hopes.

The UN insists that it expects the Afghan leaders to hold to any agreement reached in Germany.

"We have Mr Rabbani's word that he will respect whatever comes out of the Bonn talks," a spokesman for Mr Brahimi, Ahmad Fawzi, said.

Besides the Northern Alliance, the conference brings together delegations from the former king and two other small exile groups.

Afghanistan's embattled Taleban are not represented at the conference.