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Obama’s National Security Adviser Meets With Karzai U.S. Official Gives Karzai an Ultimatum on Signing Security Pact
(about 7 hours later)
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Obama’s national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, met with President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on Monday, in the wake of an intensifying confrontation with the United States over a long-term security deal, American officials said. KABUL, Afghanistan — President Obama’s national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, imposed an ultimatum on President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan on Monday, telling him to stop his delay in signing a security agreement or potentially face the complete and final pullout of American troops by the end of 2014, according to American and Afghan officials.
The meeting comes a day after Mr. Karzai rejected a recommendation from his own handpicked assembly of Afghan leadership figures to promptly sign a bilateral security agreement with the United States. The deal provides a legal framework for an extended American military presence in Afghanistan after 2014. But while Mr. Karzai was said to have assured her he would sign the deal at some point, he gave no time frame for it. And over dinner at the presidential palace in Kabul, he later insisted on difficult new conditions as well, including the release of all inmates at the American prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, adding to the perception of crisis between the two nations, officials from both countries said.
A statement from the White House on Monday confirmed that Ms. Rice had already been on a four-day-long trip beginning Saturday to visit troops and civilian officials in advance of the Thanksgiving holiday, but it made no mention of a meeting with Mr. Karzai. “Ambassador Rice reiterated that, without a prompt signature, the U.S. would have no choice but to initiate planning for a post-2014 future in which there would be no U.S. or NATO troop presence in Afghanistan,” according to a summary of the meeting released by the White House.
An American official confirmed that such a meeting was underway Monday evening in Kabul, but could provide no details. The meeting comes a day after Mr. Karzai rejected a recommendation from his own handpicked assembly of Afghan leadership figures, a loya jirga, that by year’s end he should sign the bilateral security agreement, which would allow for an extended American military presence in Afghanistan after 2014. Mr. Karzai told the loya jirga that he wanted to wait to sign it until after the Afghan presidential elections next April, while continuing to negotiate with the Americans.
Ms. Rice, according to her spokeswoman, Caitlin Hayden, “will hear directly from U.S. troops, diplomats and development professionals about our efforts as we move toward the responsible conclusion of our combat mission at the end of 2014 and as we continue to strengthen Afghanistan to ensure that it can provide security, governance and opportunity for its people.” In response, the White House summary said, “Ambassador Rice stressed that we have concluded negotiations and that deferring the signature of the agreement until after next year’s elections is not viable, as it would not provide the United States and NATO allies the clarity necessary to plan for a potential post-2014 military presence.”
She was also to visit American soldiers, Afghan civic leaders and American-funded aid projects, according to Ms. Hayden. Ms. Rice arrived in Afghanistan under a cloak of secrecy on Saturday, and the White House did not confirm she was here until after she was already meeting with Mr. Karzai on Monday evening, along with other top officials from both Washington and Kabul, and Mr. Karzai’s senior aides.
Although the White House sought to depict it as a routine visit, there had been no public announcement of the trip, even after her arrival Saturday, which the White House apparently kept secret until Monday. The meeting lasted several hours, and it continued into what Aimal Faizi, Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, who was there, described as a working dinner. And while the tone was said to be generally diplomatic and polite, the president at one point became angry at the American ambassador, James B. Cunningham.
The timing of her meeting with Mr. Karzai appeared likely to be connected to the crisis in relations with the Afghan leader. It was unclear whether Monday’s meeting with the Afghan leader was the first one during Ms. Rice’s trip. Mr. Cunningham voiced objection to an extra demand by the loya jirga: the release of all Guantánamo inmates. He insisted that United States law governs the release of the prisoners and that the issue had no bearing on the bilateral security agreement, or B.S.A.
On Sunday, at the conclusion of a four-day-long loya jirga, or grand assembly, Mr. Karzai said in a speech that he was forbidding any further American counterterrorism raids on Afghan homes, which would all but bring to an end American combat operations in Afghanistan. Most of the remaining American combat missions are conducted by Special Operations forces hunting for insurgents hiding in local homes. “That made the president very angry; his reaction was very strong and intense,” Mr. Faizi said. “The president said we cannot separate the recommendations of the loya jirga from the B.S.A. now — we cannot pick and choose. All those recommendations have to be taken seriously.”
He also said he wanted to continue negotiating the terms of the bilateral security agreement with the United States, and would not sign it until after elections next April. American officials, who say Mr. Karzai had earlier committed to completing an agreement by this November, say putting off the deal would make it impossible to prepare for a follow-on military mission after 2014. He was referring to all 31 recommendations issued by the loya jirga on Sunday, the main one being that the Afghan president should sign the agreement within one month.
Although the American ambassador, James B. Cunningham, and other American officials were present at the conclusion of the loya jirga on Sunday, Ms. Rice apparently was not. Nearly all 50 committees of the jirga recommended that deadline, while the other recommendations came from various committees and ran the gamut from allowing Afghan observers to attend American military trials to banning Christian religious observances on American military bases. Another recommendation was for an American military base in the remote province of Bamian, the most peaceful place in the country.
Diplomats here have described American and coalition officials as angered and exasperated by Mr. Karzai’s brinkmanship and harsh statements. And Afghan officials say that Mr. Karzai’s national security advisers and military leaders were alarmed at the impasse, since the Afghan security forces are entirely dependent on American military aid. For her part, Ms. Rice warned Mr. Karzai that his refusal to sign the agreement would jeopardize Western aid to Afghanistan, including an annual $4 billion to support its military, which is entirely dependent on American aid.
As recently as Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry had been negotiating with Mr. Karzai in an effort to assure a speedy conclusion to the security agreement. “The lack of a signed B.S.A. would jeopardize NATO and other nations’ pledges of assistance,” she told Mr. Karzai.
The spokesman for Mr. Karzai, Aimal Faizi, said the Afghan president took as a threat Mr. Kerry’s warning on Friday that there could be no security in Afghanistan if the agreement were not signed. She added that the United States would “continue to work with Afghanistan to support a smooth security transition and to help ensure free and fair elections.”
Ms. Rice’s visit to Afghanistan is her first official foreign trip since taking over as Mr. Obama’s national security adviser in July. Mr. Karzai’s strongest language was again said to be over the issue of American counterterrorism raids on private Afghan homes. Despite having approved in principle a security agreement that allowed for such missions, with limits, in his address to the loya jirga on Sunday, he insisted the raids should be banned immediately and completely or he would cancel the security agreement.
Such raids are the main combat activity remaining to American forces in Afghanistan now, and have been identified by American commanders as a crucial, continuing mission.
“The president insisted on the stance: a total ban on home raids since yesterday,” Mr. Faizi said. “He assured Madame Rice they will get the B.S.A. signed — you will get a B.S.A. signed, but give the Afghan people time to see that the U.S. has changed its behavior, that home raids are banned in practical terms.”
He said Ms. Rice deferred that issue to the American military commander, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., who assured that he had given instructions to his forces to “take all necessary measures to avoid civilian casualties and that the commanders will be acting in accordance to the recommendations of the loya jirga and what is said in the B.S.A.,” Mr. Faizi said. But the Afghans were not satisfied with that reply.
The only point of agreement from the talks, according to Mr. Faizi’s account, was on another demand that Mr. Karzai made during the security negotiations: transparency in elections.
Mr. Karzai was referring to what he has called American interference in the 2009 presidential vote — when pressure by American officials in response to allegations of election irregularities led Mr. Karzai to agree to a second round of elections — and Mr. Karzai’s demand that such interference not be repeated.
“Once bitten, twice shy,” Mr. Faizi quoted him as telling Ms. Rice. “Ms. Rice gave good assurance to the president in this regard, that the U.S. has no interest in delaying the elections, no favorite candidate in the elections, so in this regard the commitment was really in strong terms, and this satisfied the president.”
Ms. Rice’s visit to Afghanistan is her first foreign trip since taking over as Mr. Obama’s national security adviser in July. She was scheduled to leave Tuesday.
Mr. Karzai expressed his hope that Ms. Rice would convey his views to President Obama and then return to negotiate the issues further, Mr. Faizi said.
But the White House summary made no mention of any further talks on the issue with Mr. Obama, and made it clear the negotiations were considered closed.