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Karzai ignores council’s advice to sign US deal
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Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai yesterday refused to sign a security deal with the United States until next April’s elections, ignoring a recommendation by an assembly of Afghan elders and leaders that he do so by the end of 2013.
Karzai spoke after the 2,500-member consultative council, known as the Loya Jirga, approved the deal and asked that the Bilateral Security Agreement be signed by year’s end.
Delegates had spent three days debating the deal seen as necessary to enable thousands of American soldiers to stay beyond a 2014 deadline, primarily to train and mentor security forces who are still struggling to face a resilient Taliban insurgency on their own.
The Loya Jirga has no legal weight and can only recommend to Karzai what he should do. He convened the council to solicit their advice on whether he should sign the agreement or not. Karzai argued Afghanistan needed more time to ensure that the United States was committed to peace in the country and stressed that the April 5 elections were a key date.
“We want security, peace and we want a proper election. You have asked me that I should sign it within a month. Do you think that peace will come within a month? If I sign it and peace does not come who will be blamed for it by history? If I sign it today and tomorrow we don’t have peace, who would be blamed by history. So that is why I am asking for guarantees,” Karzai told the assembly.
He said he told the Americans ahead of the assembly that “you waited 12 years and you can’t wait another five months?”
US President Barak Obama’s administration has said it wants a deal signed by the end of the year and warned that planning for a post-2014 military presence may be jeopardized if it is not approved by Karzai.
The Obama administration has said it will pull all its forces out of Afghanistan without a security deal as it did when Iraq failed to sign a similar agreement. “We are studying President Karzai’s speech. We continue to believe that concluding the BSA as quickly as possible is to the benefit of both nations,” US Embassy spokesman Robert Hilton said.
Karzai argued repeatedly that Afghanistan needed more time to ensure that the US was committed to peace in the country.
“We need a period of implementation. We want a period of implementation for peace. Peace is our condition. If they bring peace we will sign it,” he said.
His refusal to commit to signing by the end of the year angered the chairman of the Loya Jirga and Karzai’s one-time mentor, former President Sibghatullah Mojaddedi.
“You should sign it for this issue to be over,” Mojaddedi yelled at Karzai. “This is our request. That this agreement should be signed very soon and if the president does not sign it, I as a servant of this nation, who has served these people for 40 to 50 years, I will resign and I will leave this country,” the 89-year-old Mojaddedi said.
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