Global Policy Forum

By Barbara Crossette

Russia is expected to lead a drive this month to persuade the Security Council to impose sanctions on Pakistan, the strongest supporter of Afghanistan's militant Islamic government, the Taliban, diplomats and United Nations officials say. The Russian campaign, coming after two rounds of United Nations sanctions against the Taliban, has the potential to place the Bush administration in a quandary.

Pakistan, which Washington considers an ally, has serious economic and political problems and faces a rising tide of more than a million Afghan refugees. But Washington has also led the drive to isolate the Taliban for harboring Osama bin Laden, who is wanted for masterminding the bombings of two American Embassies in Africa in 1998.

Moreover, there are signs that Pakistan, which initially backed the Taliban in hopes of creating a pliable government next door, is now having doubts about its support, as the Taliban have become heroes to radical Islamic forces in Pakistan.

The Bush administration, now engaged in a general review of sanctions as a foreign policy tool, has given no indication of how it will deal with Afghanistan. The first review of sanctions imposed on the Taliban in January at American and Russian insistence will come before the Council on Thursday.

The Russians and French have compiled dossiers accusing Pakistan of direct support for the Taliban in its fight against an opposition army based in northeastern Afghanistan, diplomats say. But some Western diplomats and United Nations officials say that they have yet to see concrete proof of those allegations. There are also questions about whether aid to the Taliban is coming from the administration of Pakistan's leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, or from freewheeling elements inside Pakistani intelligence agencies in league with Islamic parties.

Pakistan continues to deny that it is giving material support to the Taliban. At a news conference, Shamshad Ahmad, Pakistan's envoy to the United Nations, dismissed the allegations of support. He said his country is "a law-abiding member of the United Nations, in full compliance with Security Council resolutions." He referred to resolutions that ban military aid to the Taliban but not to its armed opposition. "There is no ground for any sanctions on Pakistan," he said.

United Nations officials, some of whom opposed the sanctions, say Russia, Iran and lately India have been equally to blame for fueling the war in Afghanistan, by supporting the armed opposition against the Taliban. Barnett Rubin, director of studies at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, said in an interview that it was useful to bring the discussion of outside military assistance to Afghanistan into the open. But he was critical of the sanctions policy as it is currently constructed. "What's totally missing to complement the sanctions is incentives to give Afghan people a concrete idea of what reconstruction might be available if they change their behavior," he said.

Mr. Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan and Central Asia, added that a policy of sanctions without incentives "is not the way to get people to reorient their behavior more toward peace-building and to strengthen moderates who are either in the Taliban or on the Taliban side at the moment."

He also questioned the support for Ahmad Shah Masood, a cosmopolitan former general in a Afghan previous government who is leading the armed opposition and has long attracted Western support as the face of moderate Islam in Afghanistan.

In anticipation of Security Council review of the sanctions this week, Mr. Masood went to garner support in Europe, where he received praise from Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine of France, a spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry said. "Among the leaders who exist in Afghanistan," Mr. Rubin said, "Masood is the best, but the fact is that he represents very little in Afghanistan," noting that Mr. Masood is a member of the Tajik minority. "He has a very narrow political base."