BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Far from the conflict, leaders from opposing Afghan factions are said to be edging closer to an agreement on forming an interim government in Afghanistan. Jim Bittermann, now, reporting, just outside of Bonn, Germany with the latest.</s>JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It may look gloomy here in Bonn, but that's only on outside. Inside the conference center on top of Petersburg Mountain, in fact, with the delegates are meeting there saying that they are quite optimistic. We heard a short while ago from Younus Quanooni who said he's much more optimistic today than he was in previous days, that more progress has been made and more common ground has been found between the delegations that are meeting, trying to find peace for Afghanistan. That came on the heels of a United Nations briefing in which the United Nations spokesman said that, in fact, they are finding more common ground, and he said that the delegates are not only going to attempt to assemble a large list of names for an interim council, 120 to 100 -- maybe 200 names for this interim council. But also, they are going to pick the people who will serve in interim administration. In a sense, a government for Afghanistan. And they're going to try to do that before they leave here. He also suggested that these meetings would go on perhaps until Saturday night. Now, that's not entirely clear. They said they'd sit here as long as it was needed, but in fact there are some strong indications that they will go until Saturday. Another thing that happened today is that Mr. Quanooni clarified his position on a very tricky point, and a potentially divisive one, and that was the idea of whether a foreign military force was needed inside Afghanistan to run security. He said that if it's required by the peace package that designed here, if it's needed that some kind of multinational force go into Afghanistan to assure the security of the new government, that the Northern Alliance would not stand in the way, and that somewhat modified his position and clarified it, from yesterday's news conference that he held here. I'm Jim Bittermann reporting from Bonn, Germany.
Afghan Meeting in Bonn Looking Up