Afghan Minister Warns Pakistan

NEW DELHI, Friday - The interior minister of Afghanistan’s incoming interim government warned Pakistan yesterday not to attempt “interference” in his country or in Indian-administered Kashmir. “I hope the government of Pakistan knows that the policy of interference failed in Afghanistan and will also fail elsewhere,” Mohammad Yunus Qanooni told reporters in New Delhi. “It is time to review the strategy of the past,” Qanooni said after talks with Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, in response to questions on whether Afghanistan would cease to be a base for Kashmiri militants. Pakistan, formerly the closest ally of Afghanistan’s fundamentalist Taliban, is accused by India of fuelling an Islamic separatist uprising in Kashmir that has killed more than 35,000 people since 1989. Qanooni also echoed the interim Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, in saying the new administration set to take power in Kabul on December 22 would not grant amnesty to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. “For the small people of the Taliban there will be a general amnesty but for the leader of the Taliban there will be no general amnesty,” he said. Karzai said Mullah Omar, who has surrendered his headquarters in Kandahar, was missing but that he would be arrested and eventually brought to justice. Qanooni arrived in New Delhi on Thursday night and met yesterday with Indian officials including Singh and Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani. It was the first high-level contact between India and the incoming authority in Afghanistan since an agreement in Bonn on Wednesday set up a 30-member interim government for the country. India, which backed the Northern Alliance, has opened a liaison office in Kabul. AFP Ends