A nine-member delegation of former Afghan king Mohammad Zahir Shah has arrived in Germany for historic UN-sponsored talks on establishing a post-Taliban government, a top royalist official said Monday.
A spokesman for the former king, Yousouf Nooristani, said the team was headed by Zahir Shah's top aide Abdul Sattar Sirat, and included the 87-year-old ex-king's grandson Mustafa Zahir.
The group also includes two female delegates: Sima Wali, a US-based aid worker and Rona Mansoori, the German-based daughter of the late former Afghan prime minister Mohammad Yousouf.
Also on the team, which arrived in this overcast city on Saturday, are the former king's senior advisers and western-based ex-ministers Hedayat Amin Arsala and Azizullah Wasefi, and exiled intellectual Mohammad Amin Farhang.
Nooristani said the influential Pashtun tribal leader Hamed Karzai would not be attending, and may be replaced by a former general and prominent royalist Naim Wardak. -- Bonn (AFP)
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