Post-Taliban Government Focus of Meetings at U.N.

WASHINGTON —  In a flurry of efforts to plan for a post-Taliban Afghanistan, President Bush will meet Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly next week, while Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is expected to hold talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, U.S. officials said Monday.

These talks, and other meetings Bush and Powell are scheduled to hold with world leaders, will focus heavily on the potential composition of a new government for Afghanistan. The U.N. increasingly is emerging as the forum for deciding such key political questions concerning Afghanistan, taking over from the United States as the lead player.

The various meetings will coincide with the return of special U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who is on a 10-day tour of Pakistan, Iran and Europe to talk with the fractured Afghan opposition and determine what kind of government is viable.

“It’s recognized by many that we need to develop a certain momentum on the political side and, indeed, we are developing a certain momentum on the issue of moving forward with a broad-based government in Afghanistan,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday. “Given the U.N. deployment of Brahimi and our desire to work with him, the international coordination of his efforts becomes ever more important.”

The Powell-Kharrazi contact would be the first meeting of senior U.S. and Iranian officials since the Bush administration took office. On Sunday, an Iranian parliamentary committee called for the two nations to launch a dialogue on Afghanistan, which would be their first official public talks since the 1979-81 hostage drama severed diplomatic relations.

“It is in our national interests to engage in talks with the main parties in the conflict, especially America,” said Golamheidar Ebrahimbai-Salami, spokesman for the parliament’s Special Commission on Afghanistan.

The scheduled talks at the U.N. will follow a private dinner, held Oct. 17 in Washington and hosted by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), for Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Hadi Nejad Hosseinian. Specter said he hoped that gathering would be the first of several between Iranian officials and American legislators.

By having to grapple with the Afghan crisis, the United States and Iran have an “urgent issue of strategic convergence,” an administration official said Monday.

Iran has the second-longest border with Afghanistan, after Pakistan, and has a vital interest in the shape of a post-Taliban government.

Powell and Kharrazi will be meeting as participants in the U.N.’s “six-plus-two” committee, composed of Afghanistan’s immediate neighbors and the United States and Russia.

In another possible sign of Iran’s interest in heightening its profile in the Afghan crisis, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami is expected to attend the opening of the General Assembly on Nov. 10-11. He had not been scheduled to attend the session’s originally planned opening in September, which was postponed because of the terrorist attacks on the United States.

Khatami is also expected to attend the U.N. Dialogue of Civilizations conference Nov. 8-9, a meeting devoted to bridging cultural, religious and ethnic gaps among nations, according to Iranian and U.N. officials.

But officials from Iran and the U.S. say there is no prospect of either an informal or formal Bush-Khatami meeting, although all heads of state are invited to a lunch hosted by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, which Bush plans to attend.

While in New York, Bush will host a dinner for Musharraf, the White House said Monday.

A White House statement noted that Pakistan “has strongly supported the United States in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.” It added, “This meeting is an important step in President Bush’s efforts to sustain a strong international coalition in the war against terrorism.”

The statement also said the administration is looking for “ways to further strengthen the relationship between the United States and Pakistan.”

In its statement Sunday, the Iranian parliamentary committee did not propose resumption of formal ties with the United States. “The dialogue which we have in mind is different from resuming diplomatic relations with the U.S.,” Ebrahimbai-Salami said. “The reason for a dialogue with America is due to the crisis prevailing in the region and safeguarding our national interests.”

But in a sign of how difficult rapprochement may be, the head of Iran’s hard-line judiciary threatened to jail anyone who advocated a dialogue with the U.S.

“Our foreign policy, constitution, religion and people reject any compromise with oppressor America. Those who speak of relations with America are not speaking for this Muslim nation,” Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi told Iran’s student news agency. “We condemn any word on compromise with the Great Satan.”