Question: Yesterday night you said that there is still a lot ahead after all that has been accomplished so far. I am interested in hearing a little bit about what sorts of directions you expect Afghan democracy to go in the immediate future. You seem very optimistic about what you have seen so far, the expressions of democracy. Where do you expect it to head in the next five to ten month?

SRSG: I think that the Bonn process is envisaging around two years. I think the first six months were really just trying to see how the country can recover from 27 years of various conflicts and war. This Loya Jirga is a turning point in that process in that it is going to have a government. First of all a president and that is done. That is who has a wider popular base than we managed for the Interim Administration in Bonn. Then you are going to have a constitutional process with the formation of a constitutional Commission and at the end of that period, 18 months, a Loya Jirga that is not an emergency Loya Jirga like the one we have now. We hope that in the course of these coming 18 months the healing process will continue and hopefully completed. Then you are going to have a state that has established its authority over the whole country. Hopefully, also with the help of the international community, a revived economy - of a poor country, a very very poor country but still an economy struggling to be a national viable economy. This is really the vision I have of the next 18 months. And what I said is that, and I still repeat, we have had a very emotional election of a Head of State but that election in itself is not going to provide schools, houses and food. A lot of work is needed to provide those things.

Question: The nature of the future state will have to be decided by the next constitutional Council or Loya Jirga constitution that would be appointed or elected later on. This morning there was a debate about the title of the transitional administration, they call it Islamic State and some people got very excited and the Chairman said, okay it is a vote and accepted. I just wanted to see what is your comment about it?

SRSG: I don’t think I want to comment on that. This is a country were 99.9% of the people are Moslems. The feelings for Islam are very very strong and that is what was expressed this morning. I don’t want to comment further on that.

Question: Can you tell us about this mechanism for the reconstruction of this country? We have heard that there are some differences between the Finance Ministry and the UN over who will control the money that will come to Afghanistan. The second question is, can you tell us, was the Bonn Agreement implemented in true letter and spirit?

SRSG: I don’t think there is an argument between the UN and Ministry of Finance on who controls the money. The money is given by the donors. There are some areas where the UN has progammes approved by the Administration and are being implemented to the best of our ability. And other areas where the implementers are other people. We are working very very closely with the government. We very strongly believe in having the government in the lead and we see our role as supporting the government. Certainly not as a competitor of the government and not even in the lead anywhere.

On the Bonn Agreement, yes I think it is being implemented in letter and spirit, in the sense that this is a peace process, it goes over two years. The various landmarks have been respected. On the 22 December this administration was established. On the 25 January, the Commission for the Loya Jirga was established and now the Loya Jirga is taking place and by the 22 June the Interim Administration will hand over to the next authority. I think that it is being implemented, yes.

Question: The Bonn Agreement talks about key personnel in the new Administration being discussed here. Do you envisage personally that we will have specific announcements on Ministers during the course of the Loya Jirga, particularly the key ministerial portfolios?

SRSG: I don’t know. The Bonn Agreement says very specifically that the first order of business is the election of the Head of State. That has been done. It also says that the Loya Jirga will approve what the elected Head of State comes up with, in terms of proposals, concerning the key personalities and the structures. The rules of procedure also say that the President Elect will conduct wide consultations over this and I understand that Mr. Karzai will start the process of those consultations today.

Question: I have two questions. One is just a little bit more on the make-up of the cabinet. The cabinet that came out of Bonn was heavily weighted in favor of one particular group. Was there any advise or consultations in terms of discussing with the new President what kind of a make-up would be broadly representative? Secondly, is there any concern by the UN that the US’, the coalitions’ war on terror is in fact increasing warlordism, certainly allowing it to survive and sustain itself. There has been a lot of talk at this Loya Jirga about warlords and doing away with that. Is there a concern within the United Nations that the coalition war itself, actually in the youth of these warlords in the war against terror, is in fact actually giving them a lot of strength?

SRSG: I think on your first question, I cannot add anything to what I said to your colleague, that the President will consult and will go back to the Loya Jirga with his proposals.

On the coalition, I think we have often expressed our concern about the existence of armed groups not under the control of the government. I don’t think that we have ever said that the coalition is increasing or doing anything to maintain the existence of warlords or anything. I think the Americans and the other members of the coalition are present here with two hats. There are members of that coalition who are fighting al-Qaeda and Taliban. We don’t have much contact with them in that capacity, but they are certainly very valued members of the international community here in Kabul supporting very strongly and very effectively the Bonn process, the peace process and the establishment of real peace and stability for Afghanistan.

Question: [translation] It has been heard from the analysts around here that the former King Mohammad Zahir Shar would be brought into power. What specific reasons were there that he should step aside, he was put aside and he was not a candidate for the premier seat of the government? The second question is that in the first part of the government we have had only promises from the international community for the rehabilitation of Afghanistan. Will it now also be the same with only promises?

SRSG: Firstly, on His Majesty the former King. I have been in touch with him on and off since 1997, that is five years. I have never heard him say that he wanted to come here to take power. I have, on the contrary, always heard him say, I am 87 years old. I would like to help my country. I will do anything that is asked of me but I don’t want to restore the monarchy and I don’t want power. I have always heard him say this and he never changed his language. I think that after Bonn, I saw him again in Rome twice and I have seen him several times since he arrived, he has never changed his language.

Mr. Karzai has been a staunch supporter of the King, has been very close to him. They have family ties. The father of Mr. Karzai was I think Speaker of Parliament and was very close to the King in the old days. I believe they have worked together they still work together and they see themselves as a team.

There were other people who thought that perhaps by putting the King in the position of Head of State they could draw some advantages. I am speaking very frankly, but this is terribly important and I think that was the problem for a few days. The problem was that there were some people who thought that they would use this 87 year old, decent, honorable man and a staunch Afghan who does not want anything for himself. There were people who thought that perhaps they could use him for their own purposes. Fortunately, that has been solved and I think because of that there was a lot of confusion and misunderstandings that may have created problems. This has been solved and the King has accepted the position that has been proposed to him and I think there is a national consensus about that. He is very happy about that, he has been very happy about it – the father of the nation and he has himself nominated Karzai to be the Head of State and I think this is the happy outcome of this episode.

I am terribly sorry that some people have been speaking about Mr. Zalmay Khalilzad [US Presidential Special Envoy for Afghanistan] as the person who created the problem. Khalilzad has been in touch with the King for much longer than I have. He is extremely close to him. The King has real affection for Mr. Khalilzad as a person and as Special Envoy of President Bush. Khalilzad, I think everybody should be grateful to him, he has helped, with a lot of other people, to clear this situation. If there was a problem, it was not Mr. Khalilzad who created it. Others created it, he helped solve it.

On the question of what the Interim Administration did or did not do in the field of development, I think its members would be the first to recognize that they have done very little if you take into consideration the huge needs for reconstruction in this country. The impatience of the people of Afghanistan to see the reconstruction accelerate is fully understandable. I think that the Interim Administration has done quite a little bit in laying the ground for this reconstruction to take place in the coming months and years. The people of Afghanistan and the Interim Administration both say that the international community is not delivering the money that they promised fast enough and that is also understandable, but I think the international community will tell you that the capacity of the Afghan State to receive and use that money is not yet fully there and so, even if the money came faster, it would not be used as fast as everybody wants.

We are very hopeful that in the next stage the new government, the donors, the United Nations and all other players will work together, closer and closer and will help this reconstruction accelerate a little bit.

Question: Two days ago the European delegate in Afghanistan told us that “a debate has started on the possibility of extending ISAF’s mandate outside Kabul”. What do you as the United Nations and as somebody in Afghanistan for quite some time, what do you think about this possibility?

SRSG: I think, we in the United Nations, the Secretary-General and all of us, have been and still are favorable to the expansion of ISAF outside of Kabul. I do not know what is the debate that the Ambassador Kleiber [EU Special Representative to Afghanistan] is talking about except to say that he and I are favorable to this happening. I am not aware of any official debate taking place.

Question: This is a question about yesterday’s election. I think everybody agrees that the voting was fair and that Mr. Karzai would have won in any case but we continue to receive reports of pressure, arm-twisting, by people who would not have been there under the original rules, governors, militia commanders, intelligence police. My question to you is, do you think the process was fair in the broader sense beyond the balloting itself and do you think the UN did enough to preserve the integrity of the process?

SRSG: Yes. The answer is yes to all your questions. I think that the process is reasonably fair. We have said again and again and again that in less than five months, in Afghanistan, in 2002, it is not reasonable, indeed, it is not helpful to tell anybody that it would be possible to have a perfect political process, a perfect democracy a la Sweden, Switzerland or Japan. That is not possible in 2002 in five months in Afghanistan. I think that the people who are assembled in the Polytechnic [Loya Jirga site] are a very fairly representative sample of Afghan society in 2002. I don’t know if you had some idealistic idea of what Afghan society is and how it should be represented, but I think if you look at the people who are there, you will see that there are samples of everything. There are peasants, ulemas [religious scholars], women, city dwellers, intellectuals, warlords, and commanders. This is society in Afghanistan today. How many people are there that shouldn’t be there, I am not absolutely certain. I am sure that there are a few. I am sure that the Commission had to give in to all sorts of pressures but as I said in my speech, I am rather pleasantly surprised by the amount of successful resistance put by the people of Afghanistan to insist that they be represented fairly. In many wolaswalis [districts] the meetings have to be postponed two, three, four times and people came back and in the end sent the representatives they wanted. Or at least some of them, in some cases you have representatives that are genuinely the choice of the people and those who are not. Now money has been used, I would like to know where is the country where a political process takes place without the use of money. In this country, unfortunately, there are guns and in some cases guns have been used. But I think, again, relatively speaking and considering where we are and at what time we are, those instances are very few indeed and I don’t know to whom you have been talking in the Polytechnic, but yes there are complaints but there is also expression of a great deal of satisfaction by a great many people and the scene yesterday was profoundly moving and we saw an example of all those people in that tent coming together. It was very nice and very emotional.

Let me add on point. Yes, there are some security people inside the Polytechnic, there again I would like to know, where is the country in the world were a meeting like this takes place without security people being present openly or otherwise. The other thing is if you listen to the language of the people there, I don’t know if there are a few people that have been intimidated - women are not and quite a few people are saying to the face, not only of the security people but to the leaders, the faction leaders, those you call warlords, very very blunt truths.

Question: [translation] ISAF was invited to Afghanistan to restore or secure peace. As we see, the peace is restored, it is secure and what is your suggestion for the future of ISAF? Will they go back, will it be decided by the Loya Jirga or will it be decided by the United Nations?

SRSG: ISAF has been here for six months at the written request from the Interim Administration of Afghanistan and its mandate has been extended for another six months, again, at the request of the government of Afghanistan. I believe that the government of Afghanistan want ISAF to continue and the Security Council has agreed that it should continue. The day the government of Afghanistan says that they don’t need it anymore, ISAF will leave, probably even earlier than that.

Question: I would like to follow-up on the discussion from just a moment ago about the mood on the floor. I spoke to some delegates today who expressed some frustration that they really did not feel free to express themselves because of the presence of some leaders, not necessarily with arms but people who have this sort of history. An example of that, after everyone stood up to include the name of Islam in the name of the country, I spoke to people afterwards who said that they really don’t think it is necessary though it looked unanimous. In a more serious incident, I spoke to a woman who was collecting signatures to be a nominee for Minister of Education and said that she has been directly pressured to withdraw, to put away her nomination and to allow it to go to someone else with connections to a warlord. How will this process sustain itself if people have to put up with this level of frustration and intimidation and pressure?

SRSG: I don’t know how real these fears are. As I told you a lot of people have spoken very openly. I am there everyday, what I see is that there is a lot of disorganization. There is a lot of frustration because of that disorganization and the inability of people to speak. I am told that there was a Jirga that lasted for three years in the history of Afghanistan. I presume that in those three years, everybody got the chance to say what they wanted. I doubt whether each one of the 1,500 people will have a chance to say everything that they have in their heart. There is a lot of frustration. With all respect to both the lady who wants to be Minister of Education the other person who spoke to you. I think that this talk of intimidation is very highly exaggerated and that there are probably people who are afraid but I think the mood one sees being there everyday is again for Afghanistan in 2002 reasonable. It is not yet a Swiss democracy.

I would like to add that it is the first time that I hear that Ministers are going to be appointed through petitions collected by members of the Loya Jirga.

Question: But isn’t that also another issue here. How is it happening, I mean the delegates themselves are not even sure how this process will happen.

SRSG: A lot of delegates know, some delegates don’t. With 1,500 delegates, you find all sorts of [inaudible].

Question: How do you see your own role going forward politically? Brokering between different parties, I am thinking particularly because you have been stepping largely into a void. Now there is a new political order being established and the very common occurrence of what starts as intervention rapidly becomes interference. Both your own role politically brokering and also do you have any comments, you mentioned earlier the inability of the Afghan State to absorb the money that donors want to give. Do you have any comment, therefore, on the influx of large amounts of money outside state organizations and the possibility that that might, in some sense, bypass or undermine the new Afghan institutions?

SRSG: On your first question about our role as the United Nations, I think we see very clearly our role as supporting the government. It is already like that. In Bonn the United Nations took the initiative of calling the meeting. That is finished. Now we have a technical support role. Nothing more and we are very consciously stepping back in everything and we would love to step back also in the field of humanitarian aid and also reconstruction. We are working very closely with the government to help them build their own capacity and take responsibility for it.

Money going and coming outside of the government, see there again, the question is, is this money taken away from the government who could use it or is it being used for the benefit of the people of Afghanistan by people who for the moment are capable of using it? If it is the former, if we are taking money away from the government in situations where the government could use that money, that should definitely stop immediately. If it is the second, then I think what you should do is at the same time as anybody outside the government, be it UN or anybody else, should consciously, effectively help the government build their capacity. One slogan that I am telling my colleague we should add is that each one of us should have as his or her objective to work ourselves out of a job as early as possible.

Question: [translation] In an interview a few days back on the televisions one of the engineers was interviewed and he said that the NGOs who are working for the rehabilitation here are not the spending money accordingly as it should be. The road between Kabul and Kandahar was made a few years back with 9 million dollars and they have spent 150 million dollars but the road is not properly prepared so this shows that the money is not used in the proper way. So why does the United Nations not take this responsibility for the rehabilitation itself?

SRSG: I can not comment on what money was spent on the road from Kabul to Kandahar a few years ago but I think you are right that not only the United Nations but all the people who are trying to help Afghanistan must be very much aware that the money they are using belongs to people of Afghanistan and should be used for the benefit of the people of Afghanistan.

Question: Can this Loya Jirga decide about the form of the future regime of Afghanistan to be a republic or a kingdom?

SRSG: I only can speak about what was decided in Bonn. As I said in answer to the first question, you have three stages, first setting the Interim Administration then this extraordinary emergency Loya Jirga, then a constitutional commission to be formed by the transitional Administration within two months after it takes over. That constitutional commission will prepare the new constitution that will be submitted to the Loya Jirga 18 months from now. This was the process that was established in Bonn. It was also decided in Bonn that in the meantime, during this period of two years it is the 1964 constitution without the parts that speak of the country as a monarchy, that is going to be the constitution of Afghanistan.

Question: Could you tell us why NDS [National Directorate of Security], armed people, were allowed on the site of the Loya Jirga by the Commission and as far as some sources told me, the United Nations against the advice of ISAF?

SRSG: Your advisors, as often it seems, are wrong – the people who informed you. I think as ISAF has told you several times, ISAF is not alone in charge of security. There is a national Commission where ISAF sits that is composed of NDS, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Defense and ISAF and with the United Nations also sitting there. They have put a programme together and that programme is developing reasonably well. It is not perfect, we have had some problems from time to time but the United Nations did not take any decisions outside of this arrangement that has been made. Yes we have had some problems but it is nothing horrible.

Thank you very much indeed for your patience and your interest.

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