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Pubdate: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 Source: Associated Press (Wire) Copyright: 2001 Associated Press Author: Kathy Gannon, Associated Press Writer U.S. MEETS WITH AFGHANISTAN MILITIA ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - In its first high-level meeting with Afghanistan's ruling militia, the Bush administration told the Taliban on Thursday that they must stop supporting terrorists before any serious progress can be made in relations with the United States. Osama bin Laden, the alleged terrorist mastermind who has been living in Afghanistan under Taliban protection since 1996, was a main focus of the discussion in neighboring Pakistan. After meeting with two Taliban representatives for slightly more than an hour, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Christina B. Rocca said Washington wants bin Laden extradited on terrorism charges, but that "Osama is not the be all and the end all. He is only one problem and he continues to be a threat." Rocca said the Taliban "continue to harbor terrorists" and that there can be no "serious progress unless their support for terrorists stopped." The Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, who attended the meeting, said the Taliban want to settle the issue of bin Laden, but "we support a solution that can respect religion, dignity and the traditions of Afghanistan." "We gave Rocca our complete assurance that our soil will not be used against America and that Afghan soil will not be used for any terrorist activity," Zaeef told The Associated Press. He called the meeting "very successful. The atmosphere was very cordial." U.N. resolutions, cosponsored by the United States and Russia, have sanctioned the Taliban to press Washington's demand that bin Laden be handed over for trial either in the United States or a third country on charges he masterminded the 1998 bombings of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa. The Taliban have offered to try bin Laden in Afghanistan, to let him be tried by a panel of three Islamic clerics from Afghanistan and two other Muslim nations, or to allow his movements to be tracked by international Muslim monitors. Rocca told reporters the Bush administration is in the midst of reviewing U.S. policy on Afghanistan as well as Pakistan, which was sanctioned following the 1998 detonation of an underground nuclear device. In recognition of the Taliban's elimination of opium, the raw material used to make heroine, the Bush administration is giving $1.5 million to the United Nations Drug Control Program to finance crop substitution, Rocca said. Until this year, Afghanistan was the world's largest opium producer. It produced 4,000 tons last year. But a ban on growing poppies, the plant from which opium is extracted, resulted in its virtual elimination in a single year. The result has been devastating for farmers and day laborers who depended on poppy production for their survival. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth