Afghan President Hamid Karzai outlined conditions for a long-term US troop presence in Afghanistan on Wednesday at a major gathering of elders debating the country’s future after NATO combat forces leave.
Karzai told day one of the loya jirga that he wanted Afghan-US relations to be those of “two independent countries” and assured neighbours such as China and Russia that a long-term deal would not affect their ties with Afghanistan.
He convened the four-day jirga to secure backing for a strategic partnership deal with the US currently under negotiation which will govern Afghan-American relations after NATO combat forces withdraw in 2014.
With the Taliban threatening to disrupt the jirga, a senior security official told AFP on condition of anonymity that two security threats against the event had been thwarted but declined to give further details.
The Defence Ministry said a would-be suicide bomber was also arrested in Kabul, although it did not explicitly link this to the jirga.
With the strategic partnership some way from being finalised, the outcome of the jirga non-binding and political opponents staying away, some critics accuse Karzai of mere posturing in calling the event.
Sovereignty: “We want our national sovereignty and we want it today,” Karzai told 2,200 delegates who gathered in Kabul. “We want our relationship with America to be one of two independent countries.”
Karzai called on the US to stop night raids and disband international bodies — such as combined civilian-military reconstruction teams which play a governmental role — as conditions of the deal.
But if Washington meets demands such as these, Karzai said Afghanistan was prepared to host US troops in the long-term.