German FM Meets Karzai, Urges Him to Sign U.S. Troops Deal
Germany's foreign minister arrived Sunday in Afghanistan on an unannounced visit and urged its president to sign a long-delayed security pact with the United States.
The Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) which would allow some U.S. troops to stay in Afghanistan after 2014 was approved by a loya jirga, or tribal assembly, last November.
But it hit the buffers when President Hamid Karzai made a surprise decision not to sign it.
More than 50,000 combat troops from the U.S.-led NATO force are due to pull out by the end of this year.
But Washington is proposing that around 10,000 U.S. soldiers are deployed from 2015 to train and assist Afghan security forces in their battle against Taliban militants.
NATO members and allies considering deploying troops after 2014 have been waiting on the U.S.-Afghan pact to negotiate their own legal arrangements with Kabul for their forces.
"It is important that (the BSA) be signed immediately" for the maintenance of German troops in Afghanistan after 2014, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters.
He was speaking at a joint news conference with his Afghan counterpart Zarar Ahmad Usmani after meeting Karzai in Kabul.
"Because we have our programs for training (the Afghan forces) -- it is not an easy job," he said.
Karzai, who has ruled the country since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, has said that before he signs the BSA, the United States must foster a genuine peace process with the Taliban.
He has also suggested that a decision on whether to sign would fall to his successor, to be chosen in elections on April 5.
"Without doubt, the Afghan president is going to sign the BSA before elections if the conditions are fulfilled," Afghan Foreign Minister Usmani said during the press conference.
Most of the 3,000 German troops deployed in Afghanistan are based in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, which Steinmeier visited earlier Sunday.
The German government decided last Wednesday to extend by ten months its military presence in the country until the end of 2014.
The lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, must still give its approval.
It was the first visit to Afghanistan by the Social Democrat minister since he entered the coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel that emerged from September's legislative elections.
It comes as the United Nations said the number of civilians killed and wounded in Afghanistan rose 14 percent last year.
A total of 8,615 civilian casualties were recorded in 2013, with 2,959 killed and 5,656 wounded, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan's annual report.
Source: Agence France Presse
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