DUBAI, SEPT 17: Pakistani foreign minister Sartaj Aziz today airdashed to Iran on an ``unexpected'' visit to hold talks on the Afghan crisis that has soured relations between Tehran and Islamabad as China and Japan asked Iran and the Taliban to exercise restraint.Aziz arrived on a ``unexpected and short'' visit with a message from Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who had offered to act as a mediator to ease tension between Iran and the Islamic militia yesterday, to Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, Iranian state television reported.``Mr Aziz is coming here with a message of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for. Khatami on the Afghan crisis,'' the Tehran Times quoted a Pakistani diplomat as saying.The decision to send Aziz to Iran was taken after General Jehangir Karamat's meeting with the prime minister during which the two discussed the situation on the western front between Iran and Afghanistan.Pakistan has requested both Iran and Afghanistan to solve their dispute amicably and ifthe two sides agreed Pakistan will play the role of a mediator. Pakistan has assured all help in reducing the tension in the two states.Iranian leaders had recently accused Pakistan for its involvement in Afghanistan's affairs.Sharif will also meet the Iranian president in New York where the two will attend the general assembly of the United Nations.The visit coincides with the rising tension between Iran and the Taliban over the killings of Iranian diplomats by the Islamic militia who are locked in fierce fighting with the forces of the opposition alliance in northern Afghanistan.The forces of opposition commander Ahmad Shah Masood have seized an important region in northern Afghanistan taking near-complete control of Badakhshan province by driving out the Islamic militia, Iran's official news agency IRNA said.The agency, quoting Afghan sources, said the Masood forces had completed their operations in Badakhshan yesterday after capturing the entire region of Raq.On the other hand, theTaliban today denied reports that opposition forces had launched a counter- attack and captured parts of Bamiyan provincial town from the religious militia.Meanwhile, US and Iranian representatives are preparing to meet in New York to discuss Afghanistan in the highest level meeting of officials from the two countries since the 1979 hostage crisis, diplomats have said.The ministerial meeting, planned for Monday on the sidelines of the UN general assembly, will also include officials from Afghanistan's other neighbours, they said.US secretary of state Madeleine Albright and her Iranian counterpart Kamal Kharazi are to attend the meeting which will also be attended by Lakhtar Brahimi, an Algerian who is the UN envoy to Afghanistan, they said.A UN diplomat told AFP that Washington had requested the world body to organise the meeting under the `six plus two' format, which refers to Afghanistan's six neighbours - Iran, Pakistan, China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistam - plus the United Statesand Russia.The meeting was ``likely but not certain'', the diplomat said, adding that Washington also wanted UN secretary-general Kofi Annan to participate.A US state department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the meeting was being prepared but said it was ``not hundred percent sure.''
