Deal due on Handing U.S. Prisons to Afghans

A deal on the transfer of the controversial U.S.-run Bagram prison and other detention facilities to Afghan authorities is expected to be signed later on Friday, an official said.

"There is expected to be a signing of a memorandum of understanding to transfer U.S. detention facilities to Afghan control," a Western official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

The handover of the Bagram prison -- sometimes called Afghanistan's Guantanamo Bay -- has been a key sticking point in talks between the U.S. and Afghan governments over the signing of a long-term strategic partnership deal.

President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly demanded -- in the name of Afghan sovereignty -- that the prison be transferred before he signs any long-term deal governing Afghan-U.S. relations after NATO combat troops pull out in 2014.

The prison at Bagram, a military base north of Kabul, holds rebel fighters detained by U.S.-led NATO forces in their 10-year war against a Taliban-led insurgency trying to topple Karzai's government.

In early January, Karzai gave the United States a one-month deadline to hand over the prison. When that was missed, he gave the U.S. another month, making the deadline March 10.