Afghan tribal chieftains to decide this week on future US troop presence
Thousands of tribal chieftains and politicians will gather this week in the Afghan capital to discuss a security pact with the United States which will shape Washington's future military presence in the war-scarred nation.
Thousands of tribal chieftains and politicians will gather this week in the Afghan capital to discuss a security pact with the United States which will shape Washington's future military presence in the war-scarred nation.
The bilateral security agreement will determine how many US soldiers stay in Afghanistan when most of Nato's 75,000 troops that are still in the country leave at the end of next year.
If endorsed by the loya jirga - Pashto for grand assembly - the deal will be put before the Afghan parliament for final approval before President Hamid Karzai signs it.
Key obstacles include the question of legal immunity for those US troops who remain - an issue that scuppered a similar pact in Iraq. And the Taliban have branded the meeting a US-designed plot, vowing to pursue and punish its delegates as traitors if they approve the deal.
They want us. They need us. And we promised to stay
Kabul says up to 16,000 American troops could stay beyond 2014. If signed, the agreement would allow Bagram Air Base, the largest military base in the country, to remain under US control, according to Karzai's national security adviser, Rangin Dadfar Spanta.
The loya jirga will also decide if US soldiers should be given immunity against Afghan laws for crimes committed while deployed in Afghanistan.
The subject has been a serious sticking point. Karzai has said the loya jirga is the only Afghan institution with the authority to decide whether or not to grant immunity to US soldiers.
The immunity issue sank a similar deal in Iraq in 2011, leading the Americans to quit the country completely. The country is now torn by some of its worst sectarian violence since 2008.
A similar so-called "zero option" has been touted as a possibility in Afghanistan, leading to fears of a return to the chaotic violence of the 1990s, when rival warlords laid waste to Kabul.
But President Barack Obama's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, James Dobbins, rejected the Iraq comparison, saying that the new agreement would be supported by Afghans.
"They want us. They need us. And we promised to stay," he said. "There's strong support for a continued international military and civilian presence."
Afghan Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal, speaking in New Delhi on Monday, gave a similarly bullish assessment of his country's security forces, saying "doomsday" predictions of a repeat of the 1990s were unfounded. The four-day loya jirga will start tomorrow at the campus of Polytechnic University in west Kabul.
Afghans go to the polls next April to elect a successor to Karzai, and a credible election is seen as vital to stability in Afghanistan's first democratic transfer of power.
