U.N. Says Afghan Govt. Unity Deal Needed in Coming Days

Afghan presidential rivals must agree on a new unity government in the next day or two to avoid the risk of conflict, a U.N. envoy warned Thursday.

The rival candidates, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, have been struggling to reach a power-sharing deal to resolve a dispute over the June 14 election.

The United Nations stepped in to carry out an audit of the ballots to address allegations of fraud and is due to announce the results soon.

"If there is no agreement by the time of the certification of results, new dynamics will be set in play with the potential to trigger further uncertainty, even the risk of conflict," U.N. envoy Jan Kubis told the Security Council.

"The time remaining is short - and by this I mean one or two days."

There are fears that street protests could spill into violence, with Abdullah drawing support from Tajiks and other northern Afghan groups, while Ghani is backed by Pashtun tribes of the south and east.

Kubis said the final sticking point in the way of a deal revolved around "how to best communicate results when supporters on both sides genuinely believe that it was their candidate who won."

The envoy stressed that a new power-sharing government would ensure that billions of dollars in aid would continue to flow to Afghanistan, one of the world's most aid-dependent countries.

He argued that months of stalemate over the disputed election had compounded the violence on the ground.

A total of 2,312 civilians were killed in the first eight months of this year, an increase of 15 percent from 2013.