Close office, U.S. tells Taliban

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, FEB. 10. The Bush administration has further tightened the screws on the Taliban by asking it to close its liaison office in New York and announcing that it is reviewing the visa status of its Representative, Mr. Abdul Hakeem Mujahid.

Officials at the United Nations are not aware of Washington's latest moves and are urging the administration to allow some kind of representation of the Taliban to continue in this country in view of the grave humanitarian crisis going on in Afghanistan. The Taliban has an office, including a small staff, in Queens.

The U.S. decision was conveyed to the Taliban representative when he came down from New York to meet officials at the State Department here on Thursday. Mr. Hakeem Mujahid was told of the administration's decision by the Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Mr. Alan Eastham.

``...that was a chance for Mr. Eastham to remind him (Mr. Hakeem Mujahid) of the requirements of the Security Council Resolutions 1267 and 1333 and the steps being taken by the United States to implement them. Among those steps is the requirement to close any Taliban office in the United States...So we are going to carry that through,'' the State Department Spokesman, Mr. Richard Boucher said.

Mr. Hakeem Mujahid apparently brought a letter from the Afghanistan Foreign Minister listing Kabul's grievances with the former Clinton administration and seeking better relations with the successor administration here. The U.S. has said that this depended on the conduct of the Taliban which, aside from the matter of Osama bin Laden, included the treatment of women and children, a crackdown on opium production and a broad-based government.

At the insistence of Russia and the U.S., the U.N. Security Council came down hard on the Taliban; and the new sanctions against that outfit came into force just before the administrations changed in Washington. If, among other things, Washington is demanding that Osama bin Laden be expelled from Afghanistan and brought to trial, Moscow is furious at the role of the exiled Saudi national at the goings on in Chechnya.

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