The United Nations welcomed the postponement of Afghanistan's first ever general elections scheduled for the next June, a top UN official said in Kabul Sunday.  

"The decision indeed would certainly allow the Secretariat and the Joint Election Management Board to start preparing the holding of the elections," Jean Arnault, special envoy of United Nations Secretary General to Afghanistan told journalists.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai earlier in the morning announced that the presidential and parliamentary elections would be held in September instead of June.

Under the Bonn accord reached among various Afghan political and ethnic groups both the presidential and legislature elections were scheduled for June 2004.

However, Afghans and UN officials say that the logistical problems to accomplish voters' registrations as well as other requirements caused the elections to be delayed.

Early last week UN Secretary-General Coffi Annan in a report warned that the elections would be undermined unless the law and order improved and voters' registration process expedited.

"I think the postponement of elections would also help political parties to have a sense of what has to be completed between now and September," the UN diplomat observed.

The decision, he said, would also allow NATO to expand its peacekeeping troops beyond Kabul in the provinces.

The Afghan president earlier requested NATO to expand its mandate beyond the capital city and help his government to consolidate its power across the country.

The delaying of election, Arnault added, was also important in the wake of Berlin conference and would be an opportunity for international community as well as Afghan transitional government to understand "how huge the agenda is between now and September."

"In order to have proper elections in September clearly many things that have not happened in the past must now happen in a very short period of time," maintained the UN diplomat.

The two-day international donors' conference begins on March 31 in Berlin, Germany besides reviewing Afghanistan's reconstruction over the past two years would announce further support for the recovery of the war-torn country.

As the head of a ranking delegation, President Karzai is going to represent the war-weary country there at the conference.

(Xinhua News Agency March 29, 2004)