Afghan opposition backs ex-king's peace plan

KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) -- Afghanistan's anti-Taliban opposition alliance said on Thursday it fully backed a peace plan proposed by former king Zahir Shah to end the country's long civil war.

"We fully support it and (will) co-operate with this move, which is the sole national way of resolving the conflict," Dr Abdullah, a senior opposition spokesman, told Reuters.

He was speaking hours after a delegation from the former king ended its meeting with the alliance leaders in the remote northeast town of Faizabad. The talks started on Tuesday.

The envoys are trying to muster support for calling a Loya Jirga, or a grand council of elders, to end the civil war between the ruling Taliban movement and its opponents led by Burhanuddin Rabbani and his military commander Ahmad Shah Masood.

The Loya Jirga is a collection of Afghan leaders, representing most of society and includes tribal leaders, Islamic clerics, intellectuals and landlords.

The delegation, which came from Rome where the former monarch has lived since his ouster in 1973, was headed by his political aides Hamid Karzai and Zalamai Rasool.

Abdullah said the two held extensive discussions with Rabbani and Masood. "We fully support the Jirga with the aim of restoring peace and giving the people the right of self-determination," he said.

Abdullah said the team clarified that the king did not want to be reinstated as the future leader.

Factional fighting has raged in Afghanistan for 11 years and all efforts to bring peace, including those by the United Nations, have failed.

Francesc Vendrell, the U.N. representative trying to bring peace to Afghanistan, told Reuters he hoped to have at least a firm agenda agreed between the two sides by February.

Vendrell travels constantly to meet the warring parties and the "Six-Plus-Two" countries -- neighbouring Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and China plus the United States and Russia.

Zahir Shah's envoys have already discussed the Loya Jirga proposal with neighbouring countries, which support one faction or the other.

In the past the purist Islamic Taliban have rejected Zahir Shah's move saying he was working on the behest of the United States, but there was no comment from the Taliban on the latest moves.

The Taliban hold most of the country, including the capital, Kabul, from where it ousted Rabbani in 1996.

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