G-8 Foreign Ministers Adopt Statement On Afghanistan

G-8 foreign ministers have adopted a statement on Afghanistan. The Russian foreign ministry's information and press department reported Monday that the ministers had hailed the initiative of the UN secretary general and his special representative Lakhdar Brahimi to call a meeting of Afghan representatives in Bonn this week to discuss complete implementation of the UN Security Council's Resolution 1378 and urgent composition of a transitional administration in Afghanistan. We hope that this will be a step towards a political compromise in the interests of peace and stability in Afghanistan and the entire region, the statement runs. The ministers expressed support for Brahimi's efforts and called upon those present to seize this opportunity. The document stressed that this process must seek to form a broad-based, multi-ethnic government in Afghanistan which would guarantee independence and territorial integrity to the country and be orientated at peaceful relations with the neighbours of Afghanistan, reads the document. The ministers particularly emphasised that the new Afghan leadership's respect for human rights regardless of sex, ethnic or religious status, and its compliance with the norms of international humanitarian law would be the precondition for rendering international assistance for reviving the country.