'Afghanistan will decide summit success’

Press, 23 November 1987, Page 9

'Afghanistan will decide summit success’

NZPA-Reuter Vienna The Afghanistan problem will decide the success of next month’s United States-Soviet summit, Pakistan’s President, Zia-uI-Haq said in an interview published in Vienna on Saturday.

He said he was convinced of the sincerity of Moscow’s offer to with-

Afghanistan,” he said. “But they fear this would result in a massacre of

traditional tribal democracy of the past,” President Zia said.

draw its troops from Afghanistan and was prepared to offer them full co-operation in achieving this.

their supporters there.” President Zia said he proposed that a Soviet pullout from Afghanistan take place as soon as

He spoke on the eve of a visit to Pakistan by Austria’s President, Kurt Waldheim, who has been shunned by the West be-

Soviet troops have been in Afghanistan since Moscow’s intervention in December, 1979. President Zia’s remarks to Austrian journalists in Islamabad were published in Austria’s three leading dailies — the conservative “Die Presse” and the

possible and be coupled with the creation of a caretaker Government in Kabul under the control of a United Nations peace-keeping force. “This caretaker Government would have to be headed by a person who has the confidence of the

cause of controversy over his war record. Dr Waldheim’s presidency and two previous visits abroad have been overshadowed by allegations by Jewish groups that he was involved in war crimes, a charge he denies.

popular tabloids, "Kronen Zeitung” and “Kurier.” "The Afghanistan theme at the summit between (President Ronald) Reagan and (the Soviet leader Mikhail) Gorba-

three main elements in the Afghanistan conflict — the freedom fighters, the refugees and the present Government in Kabul,” the Pakistan leader said.

President Zia said he held Dr Waldheim in the highest esteem for his peace-making efforts as United Nations secretarygeneral from 1972 to 1982. “After the Soviet inva-

chev will decide the future of relations between the two superpowers,” President Zia said. “It seems that the Soviets are serious in their offer to withdraw their troops from

He said one such figure was Afghanistan’s ex-King Zahir Shah, now living in exile in Rome, who would be acceptable both to Moscow and the others. "But he would have to be recalled by a ‘grand national assembly,’ the

sion of Afghanistan, when the stream of refugees began to flow Waldheim was the first person in the world to point out at international level the tragedy and danger of this conflict,” President Zia said.