U.S. President Barack Obama spoke by phone with his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai, Tuesday.
The two leaders discussed Afghanistan’s upcoming elections, a Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) for U.S. forces following the planned end of the year withdrawal from the country, and Afghanistan-led peace and reconciliation efforts, according to the White House.
The White House expressed its support for upcoming elections in Afghanistan, adding that the U.S. would assist Afghan forces as they work to secure upcoming countrywide elections set for April 5. During the call, Obama reiterated that Washington would not back any of the candidates in the polls.
Regarding the BSA, “President Obama told President Karzai that because he has demonstrated that it is unlikely that he will sign the BSA, the United States is moving forward with additional contingency planning.”
"Specifically, President Obama has asked the Pentagon to ensure that it has adequate plans in place to accomplish an orderly withdrawal by the end of the year should the United States not keep any troops in Afghanistan after 2014."
The White House said that the longer Washington and Kabul go without a BSA the harder it will be to plan support operations, and “more likely it will be that any post-2014 U.S. mission will be smaller in scale and ambition.”
The agreement would allow some U.S. forces to remain in the country following year’s end for what the U.S. has said would be support operations for the Afghan military.
Afghanistan’s loya jirga, a gathering of the country’s elders, backed the security agreement in November, and urged Karzai to sign it.
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