Afghan President Rules Out The Possibility Of Negotiation With Taliban

Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani has ruled out the possibility of negotiating with Taliban. Rabbani, who is visiting Dushanbe, said the Northern Alliance's United Front "has no intention of negotiating with Taliban because the time when negotiations were possible is long gone." Rabbani reminded that Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov and himself had repeatedly blamed Taliban for turning Afghanistan into a hotbed of terrorism and posing a serious threat to the world community. Speaking about US strikes on Afghanistan-based terrorist camps, Rabbani remarked, "We are at one with the US government when it comes to elimination of international terrorists. But we don't want our country brought down to the ground." Pointing out Russia's role in the effort to settle the Afghan issue, Rabbani said that as a member of the 6+2 Group /6 countries neighboring Afghanistan plus Russia and the USA/, Russia always "supported us on the international scene, both morally and politically, and provided humanitarian aid." Touching on the future government of Afghanistan, the president stressed that it must "comprise representatives of all of the country's tribes and peoples except Taliban." In Rabbani's opinion, Afghanistan must be turned into a republic.