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.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant