MOSCOW, November 24 (RIA Novosti) – An influential council of Afghan elders known as the Loyal Jirga approved on Sunday a deal on basing of American troops in Afghanistan after the official pullout of foreign forces in 2014, local media said.
The Jirga called for the deal to be inked within six weeks, Pajhwok news reported. That would mean it would be confirmed before Afghanistan’s presidential elections in April 2014.
Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai said last Thursday a deal would be signed only after the April elections, prompting a rebuke from US Secretary of State John Kerry, Pajhwok said.
Previously, Kerry said Washington and Kabul had agreed on a final document detailing the role of US forces after 2014.
A timetable for a handover of security tasks from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to local Afghan forces was agreed at the NATO summit in Chicago in May this year.
Russia and some of Afghanistan’s central Asian neighbors have expressed concern over the possible deterioration of security in the country after the ISAF pullout.
