Chairman Karzai: Ladies and Gentleman, first of all I am glad to be back in Kabul. I had a nice trip. It went very well. And I am glad we had some sunshine today to have all the good planes land visitors here. That's of His Excellency the Secretary-General of the United Nations and His Excellency the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada. And my own little plane. I am very glad as well to see today a distinguished personality of the world, somebody who can be called the President of the World. When we were kids ...

SG: .....He's going to get me in trouble... [laughter]

Chairman Karzai: We thought the SG was the President of the World, as much as he might not like it, but that is a position that has the respect of the world community, of the Member States, and it sees Mr. Kofi Annan as a gentleman, as a person, as a distinguished diplomat, as a distinguished man, human being, we respect him and we are glad and honoured that he took the time to be here with us today and to bless us with his visit here. We're glad for that.

We also have another remarkable visit - that of the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, [Mr. John Manley]. We were informed in Japan of His Excellency's visit. We said Wow! How good for Afghanistan, two very significant trips in one day for Afghanistan. We have not seen that for years. We hope this trend will continue for the years to come. And We hope that Afghanistan will have such good days more and more and we hope that world attention will be on Afghanistan so that the country gets reconstructed, furthers stability so that Afghans can start to live very normal lives, so that our country stands back on its own feet and I'm sure both these distinguished gentlemen here will help us do that.

May I now give the floor to His Excellency Kofi Annan. Thank you very much.

SG: Thank you very much Chairman Karzai. I am very happy to be here in Afghanistan on my first visit ever. And I think it is significant that I am able to come here today and not only to call on the Chairman and the Interim Authority but also to hear from my own people, to meet Mr. Brahimi, the outgoing Deputy, [Francesc] Vendrell and the UN team here. I have also had the opportunity of talking to civil society, visiting a girls' school and having serious discussions with the Interim Administration. I have been very encouraged by what I saw. Particularly in the school with the young girls - to see their enthusiasm, their happiness, and the sheer joy of being in school and learning and taking their work very seriously. I would hope that following what happened in Tokyo and the support the international community demonstrated, which I hope will be sustained over the long haul, that the Afghan people will support the Interim Administration to work with the international community in partnership to rebuild Afghanistan. We have made a good start but there is a lot to be done and I can assure you that we at the UN and the team that is here is determined to work hand in hand with you to try and implement the programmes that we have elaborated together. And I think I should also want to say that now we are moving into the reconstruction stage I have decided to appoint Nigel Fisher as a Deputy to Mr. Brahimi on the humanitarian and reconstruction affairs. Some of you may know Nigel who has been the UNICEF Regional Director in the region and he will be assuming his tasks very, very shortly, and I think I will pause here and take your questions later.

Deputy Prime Minister of Canada: Canada has been very closely associated with the campaign that has occurred that led to the change in the regime. We continue to be very supportive of the Interim Administration. This afternoon, as I visited NGO projects, I was delighted to see projects that Canada has continued to fund over the last 6-7 years and which we will be in a position to enhance as we go forward based on the additional commitments that were made by us, among others, in Tokyo. So, Mr. Chairman Karzai, we offer you our continuing support for the enormous task you have before you. You can count on Canada to be with you every step of the way, to provide the assistance that is within our means to do. Thank you very much.

Chairman Karzai: Ladies and Gentlemen, very briefly, I thought my first plan was to speak to the Afghan radio and television today or tomorrow morning to tell them what I brought from my trip to Saudi Arabia and Tokyo and Beijing and Dushanbe, but you've all captured us here, so let me say that the Afghan delegation came back very happy from all these visits. We had help in all these countries that we visited. From Tokyo, in particular, we came very happy. The meeting for the support of the Afghan reconstruction organized there by the United Nations with the hospitality and the tremendous work done by the government of Japan was very, very nice for us. We came away somehow with full hands of pledges from there. We hope those pledges will be made true very, very soon, so that we can begin our reconstruction. On that I will talk to you later again some time. But right now I have another matter that I am reading to you, in which I have not control at all, so don't be mislead. Just listen to me and don't think it is us making these decisions.

Just in accordance with the Bonn Agreement, it was decided to have a Commission for Loya Jirga, so that you'd have at the completion of six months of the interim government a Loya Jirga held in Afghanistan to determine the future political set up of Afghanistan, to have a transitional government and a transitional head of state and all that. It was decided that this Commission would be closely linked to the United Nations in work there. When we came to Kabul, we thought that that was the best way in order to make sure that the Commission is trusted by all and functions impartially without any influence, including the influence of the Interim Administration - whether it has any or not. But still we must make sure there is none of that at all. We decided that this Commission in accordance with the Bonn Agreement be determined and handled under the auspices of the Secretary-General's Special Representatives Office for Afghanistan, Mr. Brahimi's office, and we provided a list of people and they were kind to present us with the list which I am simply announcing and let them take all the trouble for it.

I am pleased to announce the Members of the Special Independent Commission for the Convening of the Emergency Loya Jirga. The names are, Ladies and Gentleman, in the following manner. The first name is that of the Chairman of the Commission, Mr. Ismael Qasimyar, a very known Afghan jurist, an expert in law, a man who knows Afghan Constitution very, very well and he is, I believe, in Kabul. I know this gentleman personally. Then we have Mrs. Mahbooba Hoquqmal, who is the Vice-Chair or Vice-Chairwoman, and then we have Al-Haj Abdul Aziz, as the other Vice-Chair. We have Abdul Salam Rahimy, Ameer Mohammed Essa, Assadullah Wolwaliji, Enayatullah Kamal, Haji Zaher Khan Jabbarkhel, Humaira Nematy, Mohammed Farid Hamidi, Mohammed Kazim Ahang, Mohammed Mahfoooz Nidai, Mohammed Taher Borgai, Nur Mohammed Karkin (I know this man too), Rashid Seljuki (I know him too), Sadik Mudaber, Sayed Amin Mujahed, Sayed Massoud, Sayed Musa Tawana (I know this man too), Sebghatullah Sanjar, Soraya Parlika. All others I don't know. This shows it is a really nice Commission - a real impartial Commission and I hope that they, together with the United Nations, will be successful in their work and give Afghanistan a good representative and fair Loya Jirga. Thank you very much for your attention.

SG: I just wanted to add, that it was not easy to put the list together. Lakhdar Brahimi went through 300 names to select the 21. We set out to get a group that would be independent, a group of men and women that would have integrity, are highly respected within the society and request them to help organize the Loya Jirga. We are not going to run it, they are going to help organize it and they need your help. You all have to work with them. Afghan men and women will have to work with these 21 men and women who are going to organize the Loya Jirga. We have asked them, as individuals, and as a collective group, to work in the interest of Afghanistan and the people and not be pulled in any direction by one group or the other. And we expect them to operate that way. They need your help. They need your understanding. I know that not everyone will be entirely happy with the list. But it is a good list and let's support them and work with them. Thank you.

Q: Mr. Secretary-General, the Afghan Delegation came with 4.5 billion US dollars from the Tokyo summit which does not match with the rhetoric of the international community and the Bonn Agreement. Don't you think this is going to put more burden on your mission here in Afghanistan?

For Mr. Chairman, now you have announced the names of the 21 Members of the Commission for the Convening of the Emergency Loya Jirga. How do you see the prospect of this commission since for a lot of the Afghan people, the Loya Jirga is but a romantic reminder of the past and cannot be a practical idea for the political future of Afghanistan. Thank you very much indeed.

SG: I think the international community demonstrated in Tokyo that they do support the reconstruction here and they all promised to remain engaged. What we need to do is to begin the reconstruction projects and the monies will be dispensed and disbursed as quickly as possible. I know that there is concern that there will be fatigue once the cameras are gone and the donors will forget their commitments. I hope this will not happen. I will be reminding them, we will all be reminding them, and you, Ladies and Gentlemen of the press, also have a role to play by putting the Afghan issue on the fronts of your newspapers and reporting it on your television. But that is one of the reasons why I mention the fact that we have appointed Fisher as Deputy to Mr. Brahimi to focus on humanitarian and reconstruction and we intend to move ahead very, very quickly, as fast and as fast as the funds are released. And I think in Bonn, from the discussions we had with the Governments, I think some of them at least are going to be moving fairly quickly.

Chairman Karzai: As regards the Loya Jirga, it is not a romantic thing. As you saw it had the attention of the Afghan people which is why it is there as the most important item in the tasks of the Interim Administration and in the tasks of the United Nations. It is a political institution that the Afghans have had for centuries. And it is a political institution that did delivery Afghanistan out of difficulties many, many times. It is a powerful institution that Afghans I am sure will listen to and abide by the decisions of and we all should do that.

Q: My question is to both of you. As Chairman Karzai returned to Afghanistan there were reports of fighting between forces loyal to Dostum and Fahim, and reports of fighting between the Governor of Kandahar and Ismael Khan's forces. So with that kind of threat of different parties still not being cohesive, would you be asking for more peacekeepers to be coming to Afghanistan?

Chairman Karzai: The reports of fighting that was reported a few days ago in the press while we were in Tokyo, that was a very minor incident - somebody had done something was simply arrested, and that man is still under arrest. It wasn't a fighting period. Now you don't call every incident of fighting, please. The press should make a difference between fighting and incidents, skirmishes. Afghanistan will have skirmishes for a long time to come. It is like a sick man getting out of the operation room. We are still in the ICU. Allow us to go to the recovery room and then walk like normal health people. So we will have these incidents taking place in Afghanistan in the coming days. That does not have any political significance at all. There was never any incident between the governor of Kandahar and the governor of Herat. Somebody made a statement. Now, it is a free country. We have announced freedom of speech. People can make statements. Don't take this as armies moving around. It was just somebody's statement. No incident at all.

SG: If I may add, I went to ISAF Headquarters and I was very impressed with the work they are doing. They are at half strength but by middle to end of next month they will be fully deployed and you will see greater presence on the streets, working closely with the Afghan security and also patrolling on their own. And I think as they deploy fully, and begin to work around the city, you're going to see and feel their presence. The Bonn Agreement required them to remain in Kabul and the surrounding areas and that is the mandate given to them by the Security Council and that is what they are working under.

Q: [Inaudible]... Is it not necessary to give the people throughout Afghanistan the feeling that they are being supported by the international community and their efforts to maintain the peace throughout the whole country and not just in Kabul?

SG: Security obviously is an important issue and we have had the chance to discuss it here. We also discussed it in Tokyo, including the urgent formation of an Afghan police force and an Afghan army and measures that should be taken to ensure that a secure environment is created not just in Kabul but throughout the country. Obviously that will require resources, organization, and is going to take some time but it is very much on top of our agenda and I know it is also on top of the agenda of the Chairman.

Chairman Karzai: It is. It is also on the agenda because a lot of Afghans who came to see us in the past month asked us for the presence of the international security force in other provinces of Afghanistan and our feeling is that if there is a need for that, they are welcome and we will have them in those provinces. Yes, the presence of the security force does in a way give the Afghans a sense of guarantee of the international community's commitment to stay and help Afghanistan.

Q: [from translation]: After the changes in Afghanistan, how do you evaluate the status of Afghanistan in the region and the international community and do you think this will decrease the interventions from the outside countries or not.

SG: I think it is important that the outside countries, the neighbouring countries and countries beyond your borders, work with us, the international community, on the same objectives. And I believe that most of them are beginning to accept that a stable, peaceful Afghanistan that is focusing on the interests of its people and its own development and has normal relations with its neighbours, is in their interest. And we have been stressing with the governments that they should not interfere in Afghanistan. They should not repeat the errors of the past and that we should all work in the same direction and I hope that is what will happen. Most of them have given us the assurance that they are going to work with us to ensure a peaceful and stable Afghanistan and that is what we need.

Q: Mr. Secretary-General, have you discussed with Chairman Karzai the continuous presence of the American-led coalition, especially in the south, and when do you think it will come to an end.

SG: We did not really get into that in detail. We discussed the security presence of the international force, which is UN mandated. We touched on the situation in the country and pockets of perhaps dangerous elements. We did not discuss the US presence in detail. Moderator: Last question?

Q: Who is in charge of the peace mission - America or the United Nations?

Chairman Karzai: Which peace mission?

Q: ISAF.

SG: ISAF has a mandate from the Security Council but it is a multinational force and the United Kingdom is a lead nation. And a group of nations came together under the leadership of the United Kingdom to provide assistance to Afghanistan. *****