Afghan factions reached a landmark deal today on a post-Taliban government headed by Pashtun chief Mr Hamid Karzai to start rebuilding their country from December 22nd, the United Nations said.
"We have an agreement," UN spokesman Mr Ahmad Fawzi said after weary delegates haggled through the night in a secluded hotel outside Bonn.
He said 11 of 30 cabinet posts had not been decided but a formal signing ceremony with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder would still be held later in the morning in the luxury Petersberg hotel above the Rhine.
The deal was sealed just in time for an aid donor conference on Afghanistan that starts this afternoon in Berlin. Diplomats suggested the Berlin meeting could approve immediate emergency humanitarian assistance.
Mr Fawzi said the UN still hoped a full cabinet list would be ready for the signing ceremony, due to take place at 9.20 a.m. (8.20 a.m. Irish time).
The UN-brokered deal, reached before dawn on the ninth day of gruelling talks, creates a government with 30 members reflecting Afghanistan's ethnic diversity to rule for about six months until a Loya Jirga, or traditional assembly, is held.
That is one more post than originally expected. Fawzi said the delegates had added a minister of rural development.
The dominant Northern Alliance gets to keep the three most powerful ministries - Yunis Qanuni stays interior minister, Mohammad Fahim remains defence minister and Abdullah Abdullah is foreign minister. They are all Tajiks from the Panjsher Valley, stronghold of their mentor Ahmad Shah Masood who was assassinated in September.