Northern Alliance faces pressure to end deadlock

The Northern Alliance is facing international pressure to break a deadlock in talks on Afghanistan's political future by coming up with names of people it wants in an interim administration.

A delegation of former Afghan King Mohammad Zaher Shah and two smaller exile groups have already prepared their lists, which UN mediators want to lock in while the participants are on neutral ground in Germany.

Ahmad Fawzi, spokesman for the UN-sponsored talks now in their fifth day, said they were pressing for something by the end of the day.

"Everybody else's list is ready," Fawzi said, adding UN mediators were exerting "very serious persuasion" to make the talks succeed.

The conference near Bonn stalled on Friday after Northern Alliance leader Burhanuddin Rabbani insisted in Kabul that key decisions about an interim administration be made in Afghanistan.

Other factions said they rebuffed a Northern Alliance request for a 10-day delay to name its people for two interim bodies - an executive with a Cabinet-like function and a quasi-legislative supreme council.

Negotiations went into the early hours before the talks wound down. UN mediators are to meet various factions again later.

"We do not want to have an agreement that is not going be implemented or respected by all four, and especially by the party in Kabul," Fawzi said earlier.

All sides have agreed in principle to set up an executive body that would have 15-25 members and the supreme council with up to 200. But the distribution of seats, the people to fill them and the role of the ex-king remain unresolved.