In a rare interview since his overthrow by Taliban rebels, Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani said Saturday he would consider sharing power with the army of former Islamic seminarians.

Sitting in an austere home in the capital of northern Takhar province, the Afghan flag fluttering from a bent and twisted flagpole outside, Rabbani told The Associated Press that he was still president, although he is ready to talk to his Taliban enemies.

He said first he wants evidence the Taliban is operating independently of neighboring Pakistan. The softspoken Rabbani accused Pakistan of creating the Taliban and of orchestrating his ouster from Kabul on Sept. 27.

Just hours before the takeover, he and many of his aides fled north to Taloqan, a stronghold of his Jamiate-Islami party.

“In a broad-based government we are ready to accept the Taliban, but not the puppet,” he said in a reference to Pakistan. “We want the Taliban to have their own decision makers.”

A negotiated settlement between Rabbani and the Taliban seems far away: Rabbani demands that the religious fighters leave Kabul, while they refuse, vowing to fight to the death to retain control of the Afghan capital.

Sitting on a couch surrounded by guards with assault rifles, Rabbani said he would wait to see whether the dismissal of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto last week will translate into policy changes on Afghanistan.

It wasn’t immediately clear what changes Rabbani was expecting, and whether he was seeking the removal of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar, whom he has often accused of being a Pakistani plant.

The Taliban army of former Islamic seminarians now control about two-thirds of Afghanistan. They have implemented strict Islamic rule that bans women from the workplace and outlaws music and movies.

Deputy Public Health Minister Abdul Sattar Paktis said Saturday that women have returned to their jobs in the health care field, though they are not allowed to treat male patients.

Fighting has been sporadic since the Taliban overran Kabul and has been centered in an area about 12 miles north of the beleaguered capital.

For the first time since the fighting began, aid workers were allowed to cross into the battlefield Saturday to retrieve the bodies of war dead. Fourteen bodies found near Charikar, about 30 miles north of the capital, were transported to Kabul in simple coffins, said Red Cross spokesman Joerg Stoecklin.

Meanwhile, the Taliban-run radio station broadcast an announcement that foreign journalists in Kabul were required to stay at a hotel owned in part by the government. No reason was given.

During the interview Saturday, Rabbani also spoke about the Taliban’s execution of former President Najibullah. Rabbani said that before he and his forces fled the capital, he encouraged Najibullah to come along, but that Najibullah had declined.

Najibullah was later dragged from the United Nations compound where he had lived for four years and tortured. His bloodied corpse hung outside the presidential palace for two days.

Rabbani and his forces escaped Kabul in a cavalcade of tanks, armored personnel carriers, cars and trucks, and traveled to Jebul Siraj, the headquarters of his military chief, Ahmed Shah Massood. From there, about 60 miles north of Kabul, they took five helicopters to Taloqan, where he has remained since.

Rabbani occasionally visits northern warlord Rashid Dostum at his headquarters in Mazar-e-Sharif, about 90 miles away. Rabbani has joined his old enemy to form an anti-Taliban military alliance.

While Dostum has recognized Rabbani’s government, few people expect their alliance could survive if the deposed government returned to Kabul.