Pakistan backs Turkmenistan's Afghan peace move

By Raja Asghar

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) -- Pakistan assured Turkmenistan on Thursday of its full support for an Turkmen initiative intended to bring peace to the countries' war-torn neighbor Afghanistan and more stability to Central Asia.

Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar told Turkmen special envoy Boris Shikhmuradov that there was a good chance the moves could end more than two decades of Afghan civil war.

Sattar assured the envoy, a former Turkmen foreign minister, of "Pakistan's full support for Turkmenistan's important initiative for the restoration of peace in Afghanistan," a Foreign Ministry statement said after their meeting.

Shikhmuradov, who flew to Islamabad overnight after talks with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami in Tehran and Taleban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar in Afghanistan, has not given details of the peace proposal.

But he told a news conference in the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday that the Taleban, which control about 90 percent of the country, had shown readiness for unconditional peace talks with its northern-based opponents.

It appeared to be the first time the Taleban expressed willingness to hold unconditional talks with the main anti-Taleban commander Ahmad Shah Masood. Previously the Taleban insisted that Masood recognize its rule before opening talks.

The Pakistani statement said that Islamabad "would endorse any agreement that is acceptable to the people of Afghanistan."

"Peace in this neighboring and fraternal country will open prospects of greater cooperation amongst all countries of the region," it said. Pakistan is the main supporter of the Taleban and one of only three countries that recognize it, together with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Shikhmuradov, who is to meet Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf on Friday, has said he will also discuss the peace initiative with Masood.

Turkmenistan, Pakistan and Iran are members of the so-called U.N.-sponsored "Six-Plus-Two" group of Afghanistan's immediate neighbors. The group, which also includes China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, the United States and Russia, has tried in vain to find a lasting solution to ensure peace in Afghanistan.

Several countries in the region have also grown increasingly alarmed over the threat to stability from rebels who member states say are being trained in Afghanistan.

"There is a very good chance to stop the bloodshed in Afghanistan and to start a new era in Afghan development," Shikhmuradov said on arrival in Islamabad on Wednesday.

Earlier in Kabul, he said: "The Taleban government is ready to have talks and dialogue with Masood anywhere and any time without any precondition," said the envoy, who met Mullah Mohammad Omar on Tuesday in the southern town of Kandahar.

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