Pakistan's new Foreign Minister Mian Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri will visit the Afghan capital on December 22 to join counterparts from Iran, China, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan for a conference expected to unanimously approve a declaration on non-interference in Afghanistan which will then be submitted for U.N. Security Council confirmation. ''The Afghanistan government has invited all the neighbouring countries to sign a draft declaration on friendship and non-interference,'' foreign ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan told a news conference in Islamabad. Khan said the draft declaration was initially discussed in Bonn last year after the ouster of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Officials from the five permanent member states of the U.N. Security Council are expected to take part in the conference as observers. Land-locked Afghanistan has been devastated by 23 years of war and occupation. Neighbouring countries have taken sides in previous conflicts, including Pakistan's backing of the Taliban, which rose to power in 1996 before its defeat five years later. (Reuters)