Kabul, June 29 (IANS) The US wants to ink the proposed security agreement with Afghanistan within the next three months even as Kabul has suspended talks with Washington over the pact, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Saturday.
“President (Barack) Obama emphasised recently to reach agreement over the security pact within three months until next October,” Xinhua quoted Karzai as saying at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
The Afghan president said the talks for inking the security pact were still suspended, and that Afghanistan has its conditions over the controversial agreement.
On June 19, the Afghan government suspended talks with the US over the security agreement in the wake of the Taliban opening a liaison office in Qatar for talks with Washington.
Kabul said the Taliban office called the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”, the name given to Afghanistan during the Taliban rule, was a “conspiracy” to divide the country.
“Our conditions for inking the security pact with the US include ensuring durable peace, security and stability,” Karzai said.
“If our conditions are accepted, certainly our nation will ink the security pact,” Karzai said.
If signed, the proposed security pact known as the Bilateral Security Agreement would govern the deployment of limited US military presence in Afghanistan after the 2014 withdrawal of some 100,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops.
Meanwhile at the press conference, Cameron categorically stated that Britain would have no military mission in Afghanistan after 2014.
