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CNN Live At Daybreak

Loya Jirga Postponed for One Day

Aired June 10, 2002 - 06:33   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Tribal leaders from across Afghanistan were supposed to open a meeting today in Kabul to begin the process of organizing a new Afghan government. That opening session has been postponed for a day.

CNN's Jane Arraf joins us now live from Kabul with an update on this story -- hello, Jane.

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Kyra. Well, nobody said this was going to be simple or easy, and in fact, it's proving a little more complicated than anyone had thought. As you mentioned, the openings of this loya jirga, a grand assembly, has been postponed for 24 hours.

You can probably see this huge tent behind me. In there are more than 1,500 delegates and all of the components that will make up a new Afghanistan, the people who will decide on the shape of the government, who will lead it, and all sorts of other things that will carry this country forward.

Now, understandably, that's a big job, and one of the most difficult elements of that is deciding who will actually head the government. That seems to be one of the problems in this postponement. But there is a jockeying for position among the supporters of the ex-king who has come back from exile, and the head of the interim -- sorry -- the head of the interim government, Hamid Karzai, who is backed by the U.S.

In addition, there are a lot of warring tribes, a lot of different factions in that big tent, and they all have to be satisfied. The feeling is that they have to come to some sort of agreement before they even get the thing off the ground -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Jane Araff, live in Kabul -- thanks, Jane.

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