61.   Musharraf had pressed the Bush administration to seek a political settlement of a broad-based transitional government before allowing Northern Alliance forces to capture Kabul.

62.   NATO officials are reluctant to mount a humanitarian intervention in Kosovo without a political settlement.

63.   NATO is expected to vote on Saturday to authorize air strikes against the Serbs if they do not agree to a political settlement of autonomy for Kosovo.

64.   Moscow has said all along that it planned to keep troops in Chechnya if and when a political settlement to the conflict there is reached.

65.   No political settlement in Burundi has a chance unless it includes ethnic integration of government military forces.

66.   NATO should not, however, make any effort to prescribe the terms of a political settlement of the conflict.

67.   Now, all the burdens have fallen on Farooq, who like his father and Lone is determined to find a political settlement to the Kashmir crisis.

68.   Of course, a political settlement, or progress towards it, would avert this.

69.   Now, as the Russian military weighs into the debate, the terms for a political settlement are sounding more and more like unconditional capitulation.

70.   On East Timor, Roth said current proposals to end the crisis in the former Portuguese colony gave him a feeling of optimism that a political settlement was possible.