6 December 2001

National's Foreign Affairs spokesman Dr Lockwood Smith today welcomed news of the success of the UN Conference on Afghanistan in Bonn.

"I find it encouraging that Afghan delegates have agreed to an interim Government and that a power-sharing agreement has been reached. The next step will be the tribal council which Afghanistan's former king, Zahir Shah will convene next year.

"Afghanistan is not so much a failed state, as a state that has suffered incredibly from lying on active geopolitical faultlines, so that its neighbours have ruthlessly exploited its ethnic and political differences for the past 22 years. Hopefully that has come to an end.

"The Afghan delegates at Bonn have achieved a promising result, and credit also goes to the German Government which organised the conference," Dr Smith said.

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