61.  Turkey, the first Muslim country to offer troops to Afghanistan, urged all Afghan groups to back the interim government.

62.  With Abdullah was the deputy U.N. envoy to Afghanistan, Francesc Vendrell, who came to the Afghan capital to try to persuade Afghan groups to attend the session.

63.  Zahir has hosted several commanders from various Afghan groups at his Roman villa this week in a bid to rally them together.

64.  Delegations from the main Afghan groups opposed to the Taliban, as well as from Turkmenistan, Turkey and Pakistan, are attending the conference.

65.  Efforts by the United Nations, the Organization of Islamic Conference and others have failed to resolve the power struggle between the Afghan groups.

66.  The Pashtuns, the largest Afghan ethnic group, were kept out of the power ministries at Bonn.

67.  Turkey has had traditionally good ties with Pakistan and has called on the warring Afghan groups to agree to a ceasefire.

68.  UN sources in Islamabad said Mestiri was expected to fly into Kabul within the next few days to persuade the warring Afghan groups to hold their fire.

69.  Karasin said in an interview with ITAR-TASS that Afghanistan had blamed Afghan groups opposed to President Burhanuddin Rabbani.

70.  Pakistan would continue to seek establishment of a broadbased government acceptable to all Afghan groups to end hostilities between warring factions, he added.