KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghan officials said Tuesday that President Hamid Karzai would clear the way for a long-term security pact with the United States after receiving assurances that President Barack Obama would issue a contrite letter acknowledging U.S. military mistakes in Afghanistan and vowing not to repeat them.
Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, said that, in return for the letter, the Afghan leader would change course and accept wording allowing U.S.-led raids on Afghan homes under “extraordinary circumstances” to save the lives of U.S. soldiers. Just two days earlier, Afghan officials had said that the issue had effectively stalemated talks over a broader bilateral security agreement, which would establish a framework for the continued presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan after the current 2014 deadline for Western troop withdrawal.
The Afghans said that the breakthrough had come about during a phone call by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to Karzai on Tuesday. Kerry initially offered to write the letter, and Karzai said he would compromise if Obama sent it instead - a stipulation to which Kerry agreed to, according to Faizi.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy, Robert Hilton, would not comment on details of the negotiations. And the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, would not comment on whether Obama had agreed to such terms.
Even if both sides agree on a final wording for the security deal, the Afghans have made their final approval contingent on a vote this week by a loya jirga – a grand council of Afghan elders. Any wording allowing raids on Afghan homes is likely to be met negatively at the meeting, given the deep outrage such missions have caused for years. But Faizi said that such a letter from Obama would help win critics over.
While Faizi declined to characterize it as a letter of apology, many would likely view it that way, and it was unclear how far Obama would be willing to go in providing a letter that satisfied Karzai’s demands.
The United States will remove all troops from Afghanistan by the end of next year unless it can reach a security agreement with the government. The U.S. wants to keep up to 10,000 troops as advisers and military trainers in Afghanistan.
