ISLAMABAD (OIC) on Thursday backed a U.N.-brokered power-sharing deal signed by rival Afghan groups and urged member states to help the new government.
OIC secretary-general Abdelouahed Belkeziz told a news conference after two days of talks with Pakistani authorities that the OIC group supported the deal signed on Wednesday in Bonn after more than a week of U.N.-supervised talks among Afghan leaders opposed to the crumbling Taliban movement. (Read photo caption below)
``We support what has been agreed in Bonn,'' he said and added that the accord conformed to the OIC's own proposals for a broad-based government for the war-shattered country comprising all factions and ethnic communities.
``I would like to appeal to all (OIC) member countries to come forward to help in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and provide humanitarian assistance (to Afghans),'' said Belkeziz, a Moroccan.
He said he hoped OIC member countries would contribute troops for a planned peace-keeping force for Afghanistan if requested by the United Nations.
The OIC has kept Afghanistan's seat vacant since the radical Islamic Taliban in 1996 ousted then president Burhanuddin Rabbani from power.
But the United Nations continued to recognize Rabbani's representatives and not the Taliban government, which until a month ago held more than 90 percent of Afghanistan. The Taliban lost control of most of Afghanistan over the past month to the Rabbani-led Northern Alliance and other opponents after being battered by punitive U.S.-led military strikes for sheltering Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden and his followers.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Abdelouhed Belkeziz, right, Secretary General of Organization of Islamic Committee, OIC, speaks while Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar looks on a joint news conference Thursday, Dec 6, 2001, at the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad, Pakistan. Belkeziz praised the role of Pakistan in the recent Afghan crisis. (AP Photo/B.K.Bangash)