RUSSIA: The Russian Foreign Minister, Mr Igor Ivanov, has promised that Moscow would help rebuild Afghanistan, saying in return he had won a promise from the interim administration not to harbour terrorists or drug traffickers.
Meanwhile, Afghan government mediators failed to push two warring tribes in the eastern town of Gardez into a peace deal yesterday and ordered both sides to send delegations to Kabul for more talks, a news agency said.
Mr Ivanov, in Afghanistan for one day of talks, said Moscow had played a key role in helping to oust the Taliban and install the interim government and would not shirk from its responsibilities to a country it forcefully occupied for a decade ending in 1989.
"Without the role of Russia, the results would have been different," Mr Ivanov said.
"We plan to play an active role in rebuilding, we will try to reconstruct some of the facilities built by the Soviet Union, mainly in energy and other facilities."
While in Kabul, the most senior Russian official to visit Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban held talks with the interim leader, President Hamid Karzai, and also the Defence Minister, Mr Muhammad Fahim.
"Mr Karzai promised that from the territory of Afghanistan there will be no more support for terrorism and drug trafficking," Mr Ivanov said.
The private Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said government peacemakers who travelled to Gardez on Sunday after some 50 people were killed in clashes last week had not been able to forge a compromise. "Neither of the parties relented on their position," the Pakistan-based AIP said. The interim government delegation had told both sides to send teams to Kabul to find a solution to their differences.
The Gardez violence highlights the problems facing the interim administration in uniting Afghanistan. Two decades of conflict have left many parts of it with little or no central influence, divided into rival clan or tribal-based fiefdoms.
The AIP said the leader of the government mediation team, Mr Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, held talks with both sides, but it was not clear if the two sides had met face-to-face for talks as hoped.
Fighting broke out near Gardez last week when forces under Padshah Khan Zadran, the governor appointed by the interim government in Kabul, tried to disarm some troops loyal to the town's tribal council led by a rival commander, Mr Haji Saifullah. The two sides are from different clans of the majority Pashtun group.
In Rome the NATO chief, Lord Robertson and the Russian Defence Minister, Mr Sergei Ivanov, said they had agreed to "upgrade" co-operation in the fight against terrorism.
Meanwhile Pakistani police stepped up their hunt for the kidnapped US reporter, Mr Daniel Pearl, after a false alarm that his body had been found dumped on the outskirts of Karachi.
The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair and US President George Bush have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The populist Norwegian deputy, Mr Tom Nesvik, from the right-wing Progress Party (FRP), put forward the two candidacies to mark their efforts to combat terror and promote peace.