MOSCOW, Dec. 8, Reuter: Afghan leader Najibullah will pay his first visit to Moscow as Communist party head later this month, the Soviet news agency TASS reported today.
It gave no further details but the announcement coincided with a number of moves for an Afghan peace settlement.
Last week United Nations mediator Diego Cordovez, ending a two week mission to the region of conflict, announced an agreement in principle that the world body would monitor a withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and a halt to arms supplies to Moslem rebels through Pakistan.
Pakistani Foreign Secretary Abdul Sattar is currently in Moscow. for previously unannounced talks on Afghanistan with Soviet officials arranged 2 month ago at their initiative.
Najibullah, formerly Afghanistan’s secret police chief, replaced Babrak Karmal as General Secretary of the (Communist) People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) in April.
He has since tried to broaden the base of his Soviet backed government while cracking down harder on the rebels.
Moscow, which withdrew some 8,000 of its troops this Autumn, has made clear it would like to pull ‘out the rest of the forces it sent into Afghanistan in 1979. Before the 8,000 left, Western experts estimated the Soviet Union had some 115,000 men there.
But the Kremlin says a settlement depends on the United States and Pakistan first ending their “interference” in Afghan affairs.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 12, 1986
