With US-backed Northern Alliance forces advancing swiftly towards the Afghan capital, Kabul, the search for a viable political alternative to the ruling radical Islamic Taliban has become increasingly urgent.
The international alliance is acutely aware of the need to frame a post-Taliban government to counter the emergence of a power vacuum or a return to civil war in Afghanistan.
Efforts worldwide have been continuing for weeks, but with the striking Northern Alliance advances of recent days there is a growing sense that the political process is lagging far behind the military campaign.
Ministers from Afghanistan's six neighbouring states as well as Russia and the US (the 6-plus-2 group) met yesterday in New York with the UN's special envoy on Afghanistan, Mr Lakhdar Brahimi, to endorse a declaration on an interim administration.
That meeting continued despite the emergency following the crash of an American Airlines aircraft in New York City. A resolution from the UN's 15-member Security Council on the new government is due to be adopted later this week.
All eyes are currently on the Taliban-controlled city of Kabul, which the US and Pakistan have urged the Northern Alliance to stop short of capturing pending agreement on a new political framework.
Both states fear that were the Northern Alliance to seize the capital it might claim to be the legitimate government of Afghanistan. The UN's deputy envoy to Afghanistan in Islamabad, Mr Francesc Vendrell, said yesterday that a capture of Kabul by the Northern Alliance would "complicate matters terribly". The worst-case scenario is that an attempt by the Northern Alliance to seize power exclusively would lead to chaos, instability and bloodshed.
The last time the Northern Alliance entered the city upon the collapse of the communist government in 1992, fierce fighting among its factions left the capital in ruins, and more than 50,000 civilians were killed.
Neighbouring Pakistan in particular fears the Northern Alliance would split Afghanistan into several feuding parts, precipitating civil war. Before supporting the US attacks on Afghanistan, Pakistan nurtured the Taliban in the 1990s during the strife that reigned while the country was ruled by the factions that now make up the Northern Alliance. The Northern Alliance is backed by India, Pakistan's arch-rival.
The future of Kabul will be central to efforts to bring about stability to the country. The US is backing a plan to demilitarise it and render it an "open city". This view has been endorsed by Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Mr Adbul Sattar, who has said the capital should be a neutral and open city "which can provide a seat for the government that all of us agree should be formed".
But while interested states agree that any future government in post-Taliban Afghanistan must be broad-based and reflect the country's rich ethnic diversity, differences of opinion on the details of such a regime remain.
As well as achieving an internal ethnic balance, the form of a future Afghan government must satisfy regional rivalries among surrounding countries.
One crucial sticking point is how to ensure adequate representation of Pashtuns, the country's largest ethnic group who make up the bulk of the Taliban, as well as the Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras who are most widely represented in the Northern Alliance.
Afghan Tajiks and Uzbeks have a close affinity with their counterparts in the neighbouring former Soviet states of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Hazars, who are Shia Muslims, have close links with neighbouring Iran.
Pakistan has insisted that Pashtuns or "moderate Taliban" be included in a future administration, but there is no clear agreement on what their role might be. It also wants to exclude any dominant role for the Northern Alliance. However, Iran has backed the Northern Alliance.
Afghanistan's non-Pashtun ethnic groups are not likely to accept domination by the Pashtuns. But because Afghan society is organised around strong ethnic and tribal ties, Pashtun support for a new government is vital to the country's long-term stability.
The French President, Mr Jacques Chirac, has said he expects this week's UN Security Council resolution to be very close to his State's proposal for a UN-backed transitional administration, with the exiled former king of Afghanistan, Mohammad Zahir Shah, as its symbolic head.
However, a Pakistan-backed proposal last month to convene such an emergency grand council of Afghan elders, or loya jirga, has received only lukewarm support among tribal leaders in Afghanistan.
This initiative suffered a serious setback over a fortnight ago with the Taliban's execution of a former Afghan commander, Abdul Haq, who had been in Afghanistan trying to rally support among tribal elders for a new government.
His brutal death has been followed by the recent narrow escape of a prominent Pashtun tribal commander from Afghanistan, Mr Hamid Kharzai. Mr Kharzai, with US backing, had spent weeks travelling and talking to southern Afghans to create an anti-Taliban alliance.
Mr Yahya Masood, the brother of the murdered Northern Alliance commander, Ahmad Shah Masood, said yesterday that Mr Zahir Shah was the key to the establishment of a broad-based post-Taliban government.
But the king has detractors, too, even among some of his Pashtun ethnic group who accuse him of being little more than a US puppet.
Afghanistan's six neighbours, Pakistan, Iran, China, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, as well as the US and Russia, have met intermittently for several years to work on a long-term plan to end Afghanistan's 23 years of strife. They will therefore be aware not only of the political difficulties which lie ahead, but also the fatal consequences of failure to find a formula acceptable to all sides.