Global Policy Forum

by Brian Murphy

The United Nations should exclude the United States and Afghanistan's neighbors from any possible post-Taliban peacekeeping mission or risk even more instability across central Asia, Iran's foreign minister said Monday.

Such a position risks increasing friction with Washington, which may seek some continued military oversight in Afghanistan if attacks succeed in toppling the Taliban and uprooting Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida command.

However, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi insisted in an interview with The Associated Press that any U.S. presence on a post-Taliban peacekeeping force "would have a negative impact on the whole region."

"Central Asian countries are always sensitive to the presence of Americans and American soldiers," Kharrazi said, adding that any peacekeeping force "should be composed of countries that do not have any specific interests in Afghanistan." That would also mean excluding Iran, which shares a porous 450-mile-long border with Afghanistan.

Kharrazi, who plans to discuss Afghanistan next week in a U.N.-backed group that includes the United States, also warned that growing Muslim extremism fed by bin Laden and others could lead to a "more dangerous" world if not subdued quickly.

Kharrazi is considered one of the few politicians able to bridge the ideological rifts between Iranian hard-liners and moderates seeking Western-style reforms. He has strong revolutionary credentials, including a key role in the state media during the 1980-1988 war with Iraq. Later, he served as Iran's envoy to the United Nations and is considered close to reformist President Mohammad Khatami.

"We are facing a new chain of developments in the Islamic world, facing a new extremism," Kharrazi said. "If wrong policies are taken, naturally it would be more dangerous and there would be more (of a) gap between the Islamic world and the Western world, and it could lead to clashes."

Iran has attempted to juggle various aims since Sept. 11: It has snubbed the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism and opposed military action, even as it shares the common goal of bringing down the Taliban.

Iran believes the Taliban have warped Islam, and has helped arm the anti-Taliban opposition in hopes the U.S. airstrikes will clear the way for toppling the Taliban. Iran came close to waging its own war after Taliban forces killed eight Iranian diplomats in 1998.

Now Iran demands a key voice in forming a viable political leadership from the fractious mix of Afghan clans and ethnic groups.

Iranian leaders instinctively oppose returning the 86-year-old former Afghan monarch, Mohammad Zaher Shah, to a position of power - they dumped their own U.S.-backed monarchy 22 years ago in the Islamic Revolution. Iran is pressing for the United Nations to cobble together a "broad-based" grouping of all Afghan ethnic factions.

A potentially harder task would follow: keeping Afghanistan from slipping back into civil war.

Kharrazi also urged excluding Afghanistan's neighbors from any peacekeeping force. Iran is at odds with one, Pakistan, a key Taliban backer before Sept. 11.

In an interview published Monday in the French daily Le Figaro, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said a possible U.N. force could be "exclusively Islamic or include both Muslim and non-Muslim troops."

Kharrazi plans to take part in a Nov. 12 meeting in New York of the U.N.-backed "six-plus-two" group, which includes Afghanistan's neighbors - Pakistan, Iran, China, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - as well as the United States and Russia. The meeting may give Kharrazi a rare opportunity to express views directly to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. But Kharrazi ruled out any bilateral talks with U.S. officials.

The two nations severed ties following the 1979 storming of the U.S. Embassy. Militants held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. The two nations conduct diplomacy through the United Nations and Swiss intermediaries. "If there is the need for more meetings and contacts, we are ready," said Kharrazi, who plans to visit the World Trade Center site, where five Iranians and an Iranian-born co-pilot died in the attack.

U.S. authorities claim Iran is sheltering at least one suspect on the FBI's most-wanted terrorist list: former Hezbollah security chief Imad Mughniyeh. He is accused of organizing the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet in which one passenger, a U.S. Navy diver, was killed. Iran denies any links to Mughniyeh or others on the FBI list.

Kharrazi insisted Iran would not alter its Middle East policies to appease the West. Some Iranian officials have recently appealed for a bold gesture to open dialogue with the United States. Behzad Nabavi, a key reformist leader, urged Iran to establish contact with all nations except Israel, newspapers reported Monday.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has firmly rejected any diplomatic overtures to Washington. Kharrazi, too, insisted Washington should take the first step by lifting economic sanctions and unblocking frozen assets. "So far (the Bush administration) has not proven to be courageous enough to take positive measures," he said.

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