The eight countries, which included Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, also agreed yesterday that Lakhdar Brahimi, the chief UN negotiator for Afghanistan, should visit the region to try to reduce tensions. Brahimi said he expected to travel to the region sometime next month. The agreements were reached during a meeting held yesterday at the United Nations on the sidelines of the general assembly debate that was attended by Brahimi and Secretary-General Kofi Annan. ``The United States believes that the time has come for serious efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan,'' State department spokesman James Rubin told reporters after the meeting, which was attended by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

He said Washington called on other countries tostop supplying arms to Afghanistan, and help stamp out drug trade. Washington believes that much of the war effort of the hard-line Taliban militia that rules nearly all of Afghanistan is financed by drug trafficking.

Tensions between Iran and the Talibans have risen since the militants overran the city of Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan on August 8 and killed several Iranian diplomats posted there. Iran has massed 2,00,000 troops on its border with Afghanistan since then.

Following are the points agreed to by the countries: