"We hope very much we are going to see the results of reform of Ministry of Defense to enable this ministry starting and completing the DDR programme," Brahimi said of the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration initiative.

Brahimi was speaking at the inauguration of local teams for the DDR programme on the outskirts of Kabul.

The DDR programme hopes to disarm some 100,000 fighters from a range of Afghan armies. Funded by the international community and supported by a United Nations mission, the programme will be managed by the Afghan Ministry of Defense.

The ministry is currently dominated by those from the Northern Alliance, the anti-Taliban coalition of the former commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, an ethnic Tadjik group from the Panshir valley some 100 kilometres north of Kabul.

The UN has said the ministry should implement reforms to make its ethnic, political and regional make-up more balanced before starting the DDR programme.

Operations under the DDR, which was launched at the beginning of the month, have been put back until the "new order" is established, according to the UN.

"The beginning of this reform is going to help implementation of the DDR," Brahimi said.

"The DDR will be the key to promote national and provincial development... if implemented through a neutral and transparent process," said the Japanese special envoy to Afghanistan, Sadako Ogata.

WAR.WIRE