Afghanistan gets international telephone line
08:07 a.m. Jan 17, 2000 Eastern

By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL, Jan 17 (Reuters) - The ruling Taleban movement said on Monday that international telephone callers were now able to call Afghanistan using land lines after a break of about seven years.

Telecommunications Minister Yar Mohammad Rahimi told reporters that New Jersey-based Telephone Systems International (TSI) had provided international telephone links to the war-torn country.

``Some 13 countries, according to a list from TSI, can phone Afghanistan now,'' said Rahimi.

``These are the first direct calls made from outside to local phones in seven years,'' he said.

He said people in the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Britain and several other European countries could call Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar through an operator.

But people in Afghanistan still have to use satellite phones to call outside the country.

TSI originally signed a multi-million dollar agreement with the Taleban last year to set up all kinds of telecommunications facilities, including Internet access.

But the work was hampered by U.S. sanctions imposed in 1998 and the U.S.-led United Nations sanctions applied last November on the Islamic movement that controls 90 percent of Afghanistan.

It was not known if any of the sanctions were violated.

``The United States ban has caused a big hindrance for the work...'' said Rahimi. ``TSI has to resolve the problem with its government (the United States) and we are hopeful for the (total) implementation of the project,'' he said.

Washington pressed for the sanctions against the Taleban for the movement's refusal to hand over Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, accused by the United States of involvement in the bombings of two embassies in East Africa in 1998 in which more than 200 people were killed.

The U.N. aviation and financial sanctions on the Taleban have stopped the national Ariana Airline from flying outside the country.