RUSSIA - Nov. 29 - Powell Urges On Afghanistan.

A report in the IHT says US State Secretary Powell spoke to FM Igor Ivanov by phone and urged the Kremlin to avoid abrupt diplomatic or military moves in Afghanistan that might undermine trust between Washington and Moscow. (The move follows the Nov. 26 announcement by Pres. Putin that 12 transport planes arrived in Afghanistan, bringing staff from the Ministry of Emergency Situations and supplies for a humanitarian mission - see Afghanistan). Powell said Moscow should avoid doing anything to promote the Northern Alliance leader Burhanuddin Rabbani as the official leader of a post-conflict Afghanistan. A US official quoted Powell as saying: "This is the way we need to go if we're going to build on the trust and momentum in the relationship that's built up over the past few weeks". US sources say Ivanov had told Powell that the Russians would work harder to co-ordinate with Washington. Publicly, the US administration played down its concerns, with State Department spokesman Richard Boucher saying: "To the best of our knowledge, Russian activity in Afghanistan is related to humanitarian assistance, not to military operations". (But the troops sent to Afghanistan were from the Ministry of Emergency Situations, an agency split off from the Defence Ministry after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. The ministry has its own military wing, with 70,000 troops). On Nov. 27, a senior Bush administration official said the US told Moscow that the Russian presence should "not in any way be construed as normal diplomatic relations or recognition of the so-called Rabbani government". (Rabbani has received Russian support for several years in his battle against the Taliban. Putin met with Rabbani in Dushanbe, the capital of Tadjikistan, in Oct. 2001 on his way back from the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Shanghai).