A security deal to allow some US troops to stay in Afghanistan to fight al-Qaeda was at risk of collapse yesterday after Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he was prepared to walk away from negotiations.
The US has pushed for the bilateral security pact (BSA) to be signed by the end of this month so that the US-led NATO military coalition can schedule its withdrawal of 87,000 troops by the end of next year.
However, Karzai said he refused to be rushed into signing the deal, and would first seek approval from a traditional grand assembly to be convened in a month’s time.
“The agreement has to suit Afghanistan’s interests and purposes. If it doesn’t suit us and if it doesn’t suit them, then naturally we will go separate ways,” Karzai said in a BBC interview in Kabul.
According to the Afghan government, talks ground to a halt over US demands for the right to conduct unilateral military operations after next year, and on how the US would pledge to protect Afghanistan.
US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel last week described the deal as “critically important” and said he hoped it would be signed by the end of the month.
The collapse of a similar agreement with Iraq in 2011 led to the US pulling all its troops out of the country, which is currently suffering its worst sectarian violence since 2008.
However, Kabul has dismissed the possibility that the US may enact the “zero option” of a complete pull-out.
US and Afghan negotiators held their latest round of talks on Monday, focusing their attention on two sticking points.
Afghanistan wants US guarantees against future foreign intervention, a veiled reference to neighboring Pakistan.
Kabul accuses its neighbor of harboring the Taliban and other extremists who enter Afghanistan and then cross back into Pakistan, where they cannot be attacked by Afghan or US-led international forces.
The second sticking point is the role and conduct of the counterterrorism force the US wants to leave behind.
“The United States and its allies, NATO, continue to demand even after signing the BSA they will have the freedom to attack our people, our villages,” Karzai said on Monday.
Karzai’s outburst came in response to a question about a NATO air strike on Friday last week in Nangarhar Province.
The US-led coalition said its forces struck insurgents trying to attack the base and that no civilians were harmed, but Kabul claims five civilians were killed.
After Karzai’s comments, Washington said it remained committed to talks and urged Kabul to stay focused on concluding the deal.
US President Barack Obama this week said he would consider a limited US mission after this year only if the Afghan government “was willing to work with us in a cooperative way that would protect our troops.”
The US wants to keep as many as 10,000 troops in Afghanistan to go after the remnants of al-Qaeda, but if no agreement is signed, all US troops would have to leave by Dec. 31 next year and it is unlikely that NATO or any of its allies will keep troops there either.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS