ISLAMABAD - The U.S. envoy for Afghanistan began talks with Pakistani officials on Thursday to help push forward urgent international efforts to build a broad-based government in Afghanistan and fill a power vacuum in Kabul.

Ambassador James Dobbins, who arrived in Islamabad on Wednesday night, met Pakistani foreign secretary, Inamul Haq, at the start of a multi-country tour to help to cobble together a broad-based government for Afghanistan.

A U.S. embassy spokesman told Reuters that Dobbins, a well-known negotiator who has worked on conciliation talks among warring groups in Latin America and Yugoslavia, would meet Afghan opposition figures later on Thursday.

Analysts say he aims to back up attempts by the international community to encourage the creation of a government that includes a fair representation of all Afghan ethnic groups, including the Pashtun majority that dominates the Taliban.

"Clearly he is here to support the efforts of Brahimi and Vendrell. Presumably he will exert pressure on all the factions to play ball to the United Nations," said Ahmed Rashid, author and expert on Afghanistan.

Rashid was referring to efforts by the U.N. Afghan envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, and his Islamabad-based deputy Francesc Vendrell, to quickly start a political process that could fill the vacuum created by the sudden departure of the Taliban and control of the major cities and towns by the Northern Alliance.

The spectacular victory of the opposition Alliance has left the international coalition and the U.N. gasping for breath to find a multi-ethnic and broad based Afghan government that could bring peace to a country ravaged by 23 years of a bloody war.

In the absence of a political setup, many both inside and outside fear Afghanistan may fall back into warlordism and factional fighting that ended with the rise of the hardline Islamic Taliban in 1996.

Several efforts are under way to shape a political future for Afghanistan, a daunting and a complex task that has eluded the United Nations for more than a decade after the withdrawal of former Soviet Union forces.

Brahimi has called for a provisional council around which all ethnic, religious and regional groups could rally. The council would set out terms for a transitional administration and a transitional period lasting no more than two years.

A traditional grand assembly of tribal elders, known as a Loya Jirga, would be convened at the same time to approve the transitional administration and its programme and authorise it to draft a constitution.

Dobbins is assisted by Craig Karp, a man Rashid described as possibly the most experienced American diplomat in the State Department on Afghanistan.

But Rashid said it was unfortunate that the U.S. efforts for a political solution for Afghanistan had started late. "I wish they had done this much earlier... starting two months ago."

Dobbins arrived from Rome after talks with former Afghan King Zahir Shah on Tuesday where he discussed holding of a meeting of foreign ministers from Afghanistan's six neighbours plus the United States and Russia at the United Nations.

Diplomatic sources said he would have talks in Islamabad on Thursday and the frontier town of Peshawar on Friday. It was possible Dobbins would continue to Kabul.

Dobbins is also due to go to Ankara in Turkey where various Afghan factions and tribal leaders had been expected to gather to discuss the shape of a future Afghan government. Nampa-Reuters