Leaders call for peace amid recent celebration

MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan -- Interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai joined leaders of Afghanistan's different ethnic groups in a celebration of the Persian New Year Thursday at which they renewed calls for peace.

Tens of thousands of people from across northern Afghanistan flooded the streets of Mazar-e-Sharif to celebrate a holiday that was banned as un-Islamic under the Taliban.

Cannons were fired as a green-and-pink flag, inscribed with verses from the Quran, Islam's holy book, was raised at the city's revered Blue Mosque. Boys who climbed trees and electricity poles to catch a glimpse of the flag and Karzai were beaten back by stick-wielding police.

"In this New Year, God willing, complete peace will come to Afghanistan," Karzai said.

"The people will live without weapons.

"The time for weapons is over," he said, with several U.S. Special Forces troops standing nearby.

Women, banned from public celebrations under Taliban rule, participated in the festivities, sitting separately from the men inside the mosque grounds. Some cautiously lifted the all-covering burqa to expose their faces.

Shaperai, a 28-year-old teacher who came from the capital Kabul for the event, said it is not safe yet for women to remove their burqas.

"We don't want the burqa, but now we have to wear it," she said.

"When the interim government disarms the soldiers, we will take them off."

To prepare for the celebration, the city -- renowned for vicious ethnic clashes -- put in place some of the strictest security ever seen here.

At least 1,000 police were on standby.

It was Karzai's first trip to the city since taking office. The celebration also was attended by U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and the Afghan leaders of various ethnic groups, including by former President Burhanuddin Rabbani and Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a northern warlord who now is deputy defense minister in the interim government.

Uncertain peace

More than four months since the Taliban were ousted from Mazar-e-Sharif, the first city to fall to the northern alliance, a cautious peace has taken hold among the three warlords who all have claims in the region.

Dostum told the crowd that all ethnic groups must work with one other so the chance for peace is not squandered.

"We have learned from the past and this time we will succeed in achieving peace," Dostum said, wearing a full military dress uniform with golden braided epaulets. "But to succeed we must stand together."

The Persian New Year, known as Nowruz, is observed in Afghanistan, across Central Asia and in Iran on the first day of spring as a celebration of harvest and rebirth.

Although people in Tehran still crowded into stores, Iran's ruling clerics have called on the nation not to celebrate Nowruz this year because it overlaps an important religious holiday: the anniversary of the death of Hussein, the grandson of Islam's 7th century Prophet Muhammad.

In an overture to people in an "axis of evil" nation, President Bush wished Iranians warm greetings during Nowruz, noted that it "occurs at a time when our nation is united in its determination to make the world safe from terrorism." He

Bush sent similar greetings in a separate statement Wednesday to Afghans.

Boisterous celebrations were banned under the Taliban, who didn't raise the flag or allow families to gather in the park around the mosque. Women also were not allowed at all to take part in the celebration.

In Kabul, one of the highlights was a parachute jump by a female air force colonel, Khatol Mohammad Zai. "As a representative of women, I have shown we can jump from helicopters!" she said. "Women can do something as good as men -- even something that is so difficult."