Concerned about the presence of foreign forces in the region, Iran and Afghanistan have decided to sign a joint cooperation agreement to boost “regional security” amid American efforts to force the Afghan president to seal a security pact with Washington.
“Afghanistan agreed on a long-term friendship and cooperation
pact with Iran,” President’s Karzai's spokesman Aimal Faizi
said, as quoted by Reuters. “The pact will be for long-term
political, security, economic and cultural cooperation, regional
peace.”
Afghan President Hamid Karzai reached the deal with Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran on Sunday. The joint
communique issued after the talks stipulates that foreign
ministers of both counties were assigned to draw up the topics of
such a pact, IRNA reports
At the meeting Rouhani voiced Iran’s strong opposition to foreign
presence and its destabilizing effect for the region.
“We are concerned about tension arising out of the presence
of foreign forces in the region, believing that all foreign
forces should get out of the region and the task of guaranteeing
Afghan security should be entrusted to the country’s
people,” Rouhani was cited by IRNA as saying.
The Iranian President reiterated the message on his twitter page
after the meeting.
All foreign troops should be withdrawn from the region. Security of #Afghanistan should be entrusted to the Afghan people. [w/ Pres #Karzai]
— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) December 8, 2013
For his part Karzai said that the Afghan government is keen on
signing the pact with the Islamic Republic. The Afghan president
also congratulated his counterpart on securing a nuclear
agreement in Geneva that defused decades-long tensions.
Meanwhile US defense secretary Chuck Hagel said that he supports
a NATO force in Afghanistan after 2014, as Washington and Kabul
continue negotiations on securing a Bilateral Security Agreement
(BSA) that will allow foreign forces to stay in the country past
the deadline.
“I believe there is a role for our coalition partners and the
United States, but that depends on the Afghan people,” Hagel
told US troops in Afghanistan on Sunday. “If the people of
Afghanistan want to continue that relationship, then we will.”
Hagel did not meet Karzai during his trip to US bases in
Afghanistan this weekend, but he is optimistic that the new pact
between US and Afghanistan will be signed. “I have hope that
the BSA will get signed,” he said on a stop in Kandahar as
he acknowledged “uncertainty about what happens next.”
The defense secretary did discuss the security agreement with the Afghan defense minister, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, who reassured Hagel that the pact will be signed in “a timely manner.”
“I don’t think pressure coming from the United States, or
more pressure, is going to be helpful in persuading President
Karzai to sign a bilateral security agreement,” the defense
secretary said Saturday.
Last week, Karzai said that he may not sign the US-Afghan
security pact until April, despite approval from the Loya Jirga,
an assembly of Afghan elders. On Saturday Hagel warned against
the delay, saying there was “a cut-off point” at which
time the pact would be scrapped, but adding he was “not
prepared to give a date on that.”
NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen also urged Karzai to sign a
security agreement with Washington by the year’s end.
“Let me be very clear: It is a prerequisite for our presence
in Afghanistan beyond 2014 that an appropriate legal framework is
in place,” Rasmussen told reporters at a briefing at NATO
headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday. Without the deal “it will
not be possible to deploy, train, advise, assist the mission to
Afghanistan after 2014,” Rasmussen said.
There are currently around 80,000 NATO multinational
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops in
Afghanistan, the majority of which are US soldiers who now stand
to be pulled out by the end of 2014. NATO is planning to leave a
training mission of up to 12,000 soldiers in Afghanistan after
2014 to help Afghan Army fight insurgents.
The US previously warned that forces would have to leave by the
end of next year, the so-called “zero option,” if
Afghanistan fails to sign the pact. And if the Americans leave
altogether, the other ISAF member states are unlikely to leave
their troops in Afghanistan.
However, Karzai's spokesman Aimal Faizi said Saturday the
warnings of a complete pullout “is more a tactical maneuver
to put pressure on President Karzai to sign [the pact] as soon as
possible.” “We believe there's no deadline,” Faizi said.