US, Afghanistan reach deal on strategic pact

In this Octo­ber 2009 file photo, U.S. Army sol­diers from Bravo Co., Divi­sion Spe­cial Troops Bat­tal­ion, 82nd Air­borne Divi­sion, stand with Afghan police­men before a joint patrol of Qalan­derkhail, out­side of Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan. . Pres­i­dent Hamid Karzai’s office said Sun­day, April 22, 2012, that Afghan and U.S. offi­cials have final­ized a long-awaited strate­gic part­ner­ship deal. The state­ment from the pres­i­dency says offi­cials from both sides have ini­tialed the doc­u­ment and it is now ready to be signed by the two pres­i­dents. The doc­u­ment was ini­tialed Sun­day by Afghan National Secu­rity Adviser Ran­gin Dad­far Spanta and U.S. Ambas­sador Ryan Crocker. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)

HEIDI VOGT

Asso­ci­ated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan — The U.S. and Afghanistan reached a deal Sun­day on a long-delayed strate­gic part­ner­ship agree­ment that ensures Amer­i­cans will pro­vide mil­i­tary and finan­cial sup­port to the Afghan peo­ple for at least a decade beyond 2014, the dead­line for most for­eign forces to withdraw.

The pact is key to the U.S. exit strat­egy in Afghanistan because it estab­lishes guide­lines for any Amer­i­can forces who remain after the with­drawal dead­line and for finan­cial help to the impov­er­ished coun­try and its secu­rity forces.

For the Afghan gov­ern­ment, it is also a way to show its peo­ple that their U.S. allies are not just walk­ing away.

“Our goal is an endur­ing part­ner­ship with Afghanistan that strength­ens Afghan sov­er­eignty, sta­bil­ity and pros­per­ity and that con­tributes to our shared goal of defeat­ing al-Qaida and its extrem­ist affil­i­ates,” said U.S. Embassy spokesman Gavin Sund­wall. “We believe this agree­ment sup­ports that goal.”

After 10 years of U.S.-led war, insur­gents linked to the Tal­iban and al-Qaida remain a threat and as recently as a week ago launched a large-scale attack on the cap­i­tal Kabul and three other cities.

The draft agree­ment was worked out and ini­tialed by Afghan National Secu­rity Adviser Ran­gin Dad­far Spanta and U.S. Ambas­sador Ryan Crocker. It must still be reviewed in both coun­tries and signed after­ward by the Afghan and Amer­i­can presidents.

U.S. forces have already started pulling out of Afghanistan, and the major­ity of com­bat troops are sched­uled to depart by the end of 2014. But the U.S. is expected to main­tain a large pres­ence in the coun­try for years after, includ­ing spe­cial forces, mil­i­tary train­ers and government-assistance programs.

The agree­ment is both an achieve­ment and a relief for both sides, com­ing after months of tur­moil that seemed to put the entire alliance in peril. It shows that the two gov­ern­ments are still com­mit­ted to work­ing together and capa­ble of com­ing to some sort of understanding.

“The doc­u­ment final­ized today pro­vides a strong foun­da­tion for the secu­rity of Afghanistan, the region and the world and is a doc­u­ment for the devel­op­ment of the region,” Spanta said in a state­ment issued by Pres­i­dent Hamid Karzai’s office.

Nei­ther Afghan nor U.S. offi­cials would com­ment on the details of the agree­ment. A West­ern offi­cial famil­iar with the nego­ti­a­tions said it out­lines a strate­gic part­ner­ship for 10 years beyond 2014.

Reach­ing any agree­ment is likely to be seen as a suc­cess given more than a year and a half of nego­ti­a­tions dur­ing which the entire effort appeared in dan­ger of falling apart mul­ti­ple times.

Since the begin­ning of the year, U.S.-Afghan rela­tions have been strained by an Inter­net video of Amer­i­can Marines uri­nat­ing on the corpses of pre­sumed Tal­iban fight­ers, by Quran burn­ings at a U.S. base that sparked days of deadly protests and by the alleged killing spree by a U.S. sol­dier in a south­ern Afghan village.

Ten­sions were fur­ther height­ened by a spate of turn­coat attacks by Afghan secu­rity forces on their inter­na­tional counterparts.

White House National Secu­rity Coun­cil spokesman Tommy Vietor said Pres­i­dent Barack Obama expects to sign the doc­u­ment before a NATO sum­mit in Chicago next month, meet­ing the dead­line set by the two sides. Many had started to worry in recent weeks that Karzai and Obama would miss that goal as talks dragged on and Karzai con­tin­ued to announce new demands for the document.

Much of the dis­agree­ment was about how to han­dle activ­i­ties that the Afghan gov­ern­ment saw as threat­en­ing its sov­er­eignty, in par­tic­u­lar, night raids and the deten­tion of Afghan cit­i­zens by inter­na­tional forces. Those two major issues were resolved ear­lier this year in sep­a­rate mem­o­ran­dums of understanding.

But closed-door talks con­tin­ued for weeks after those side-deals were signed. And then as recently as last week, Karzai said that he wanted the agree­ment to include a dol­lar fig­ure for fund­ing for the Afghan secu­rity forces — a demand that would be hard for the Amer­i­cans to sign off on given the need for con­gres­sional approval for fund­ing. U.S. offi­cials have said pre­vi­ously that they expected the doc­u­ment to address eco­nomic and devel­op­ment sup­port for Afghanistan more generally.

The final doc­u­ment is likely to be short on specifics. U.S. offi­cials involved in the nego­ti­a­tions have said pre­vi­ously that the strate­gic part­ner­ship will pro­vide a frame­work for future rela­tions, but that details of how U.S. forces oper­ate in the coun­try will come in a later agreement.

The ini­tial­ing cer­e­mony means that the text of the doc­u­ment is now locked in. But the coun­tries will have to go through their own inter­nal review processes, Sund­wall said.

“For the United States, that will mean inter­a­gency review, con­sul­ta­tion with Con­gress as appro­pri­ate and final review by the pres­i­dent,” Sund­wall said.

In Afghanistan, the agree­ment will have to be approved by par­lia­ment. The Afghan for­eign min­is­ter will brief Afghan law­mak­ers about the doc­u­ment Mon­day, the Afghan president’s state­ment said.

Posted by AP News on Apr 22 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.