Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel said Saturday he received assurances from Afghanistan’s defense minister that a stalled security agreement with the United States would be signed in “a very timely manner.”
But in a highly unusual move, Hagel chose not to meet with President Hamid Karzai, who is holding up a pact that Washington and NATO officials say is needed to plan for a post-2014 training and counterterrorism mission expected to involve thousands of troops.
Hagel said he did not think additional pressure from U.S. officials would be helpful or persuade Karzai to sign the bilateral security agreement according to the U.S. timetable — by the end of this month. Karzai says he wants his successor to decide after the April 5 elections.
“There is not much I could add in a meeting with President Karzai to what’s already been said,” Hagel told reporters after meeting with Defense Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi. “That’s not my role to pressure presidents.”
It was not immediately clear whether Karzai might perceive Hagel’s decision as a personal affront or rather a snub by an exasperated American dignitary. But this was one of the few times a visiting defense secretary had skipped seeing Karzai during the past decade of war.
Hagel and other defense officials insisted this trip was planned largely to see troops before the holidays. But the pending agreement was discussed at length during the meeting with Mohammadi and Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Ayub Salangi, and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi.
Despite Hagel’s assertion that pressuring Karzai may not prove productive, both Hagel and Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, issued separate warnings about the approaching U.S. deadline.
Dunford told reporters that while he continues to prepare for a post-2014 force that could operate under the security pact, he will have to begin planning for other options if the deal is not signed by year’s end. One option, he said, is to pull out all troops.
Hagel said there has to be a cutoff point, and it might be the NATO defense ministers meeting in February.
“Some answers are going to be required” at that meeting, he said.
Karzai tentatively has endorsed the agreement and a council of tribal elders, the Loya Jirga, has said it should be signed by Jan. 1, as the U.S. has demanded.
Karzai says he wants his successor to decide after Afghanistan’s April elections, and has stood his ground in the face of unrelenting pressure from diplomatic and defense officials.
Without a signed agreement, all U.S. troops would leave at the end of next year, along with all foreign forces.
The biggest issue with the delay, Dunford said, is not that it makes it difficult to get U.S. troops and equipment out in time, Instead, he said, is that is gives coalition nations less time to generate the political will and the resources needed to stay beyond 2014 and fund Afghan forces.
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