20000202

Bin Laden can stay in Afghanistan: Taliban

ISLAMABAD: Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement said on Tuesday it had agreed with Pakistan to oppose terrorism, but seemed unbending in its rejection of demands to expel terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden.

Teleban ministerial council Chairman Mullah Mohammad Rabbani told a news conference after talks with Pakistani authorities in Islamabad that his government was "not backing any type of terrorism by anyone ... against any country".

"We will not allow anyone to perform any terrorist acts inside or from Afghanistan against anyone," Rabbani said after his talks with Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf.

"In the meantime, the Pakistani side also agreed to prevent any kind of terrorism performed in their country, because this is an issue which is against human rights," he said, talking in Pashstu language through an interpreter.

An Afghan official said Pakistan urged the Taliban government in Tuesday's talks to solve the problem of bin Laden, who is wanted by the United States on charges of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in north Africa in 1998 that killed more than 200 people.

But Rabbani said the Taliban was convinced that bin Laden, who denies the charges, was not involved in the bombings.

During a visit to Islamabad last month, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Karl Inderfurth pressed Pakistan to use its influence with the Taliban to have bin Laden expelled.

The Taliban government has also been under U.S.-sponsored U.N. aviation and financial sanctions since since mid-November for its refusal to hand over the dissident.

TALEBAN FOR NEGOTIATIONS

Rabbani said his government thought the problem could be solved "through negotiations and not any other means".

"We have banned Osama from (carrying out) all activities and means of communications," he said. "He cannot do anything against anyone. He is only the guest of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan ... and cannot perform any terrorist acts."

A Pakistani Foreign Ministry statement issued after the talks said the two sides declared "opposition to terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and expressed their resolve to combat this menace".

Rabbani said Tuesday's talks also settled a row over Pakistani transit trade facilities for landlocked Afghanistan, with Islamabad agreeing to allow goods to travel from Pakistani ports to Afghanistan free of charge.

But he said both sides agreed to prevent goods imported under the scheme into Afghanistan being smuggled back to Pakistan through the long, porous border between the two countries.

"Mullah Rabbani was given the assurance that Pakistan will allow free transit trade facility to meet Afghanistan's genuine requirements," the Pakistani statement said.

"Mullah Rabbani agreed to extend Afghanistan's full cooperation in combating smuggling to prevent the harmful effects of Afghan transit trade on Pakistan's economy," it said.

Pakistan has complained that Afghan traders were importing large quantities of electronic goods, cosmetics and fabrics beyond the needs of their war-shattered country and then smuggling them to Pakistan.

Rabbani said Pakistan had also made a proposal for a settlement with a northern opposition alliance fighting the Taliban, which controls about 90 percent of Afghanistan.

"We are always ready for negotiations...," he said without giving any details of the Pakistani proposals.

OPPOSITION ACCUSES TALEBAN OF MASSACRE

In a separate development, a senior opposition commander accused Taliban forces of killing about 80 members of ethnic minorities in a town in the north of the country.

Mohammed Mohaqiq, a commander with opposition leader Ahmed Shah Masood, told Reuters that Taliban forces had killed the people in Gosfandi district of Sari Pul province, which Masood's forces lost last week.

"All of the victims were shot in the bazaar of Gosfandi. They belonged to Uzbek, Tajik and Hazara (ethnic) groups," Mohaqiq told Reuters by telephone from northern Afghanistan.

There has been no independent verification of Mohaqiq's comments and Taliban officials were not immediately available.-Reuters