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Kerry to Skip Ukraine and Visit Moldova Kerry and Allies Step Up Pressure for Afghan Pact
(about 9 hours later)
BRUSSELS — In a signal of American unhappiness with Ukraine’s decision to distance itself from the European Union, Secretary of State John Kerry plans to skip a long anticipated visit to Kiev this week. Instead, Mr. Kerry will visit Moldova on Wednesday, a small nation of 3.6 million that has pursued closer ties with the European Union in the face of intense pressure from Moscow. BRUSSELS — Secretary of State John Kerry and allied diplomats stepped up the pressure Tuesday on the Afghan government to sign an accord soon that would allow American troops to stay in the country after 2014.
It will be the first visit by an American secretary of state to the strategically positioned country since James A. Baker III was there in 1992. In a comment that reflected the Obama administration’s frustration with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, Mr. Kerry suggested that if he was reluctant to be associated with the accord another senior Afghan official might sign it.
“We wanted to send a very strong signal of support for those countries that have moved forward with the E.U. because of what it means to their commitment to reform,” a senior State Department official said Monday night. “His minister of defense can sign it,” Mr. Kerry told reporters. “The government can sign it. Somebody can accept responsibility for this.”
Ukraine had been expected to sign trade and political agreements with the European Union last month. And Mr. Kerry had been expected soon afterward to visit Kiev, which is hosting a meeting this week of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The need for an agreement that would provide a legal foundation for American forces to stay in Afghanistan after their formal combat mission ends in 2014 was a major issue as foreign ministers from NATO nations gathered here for two days of meetings.
But the decision by Ukraine’s president, Viktor F. Yanukovich, to back away from the accords following economic pressure and blandishments from Russia has prompted furious protests in Kiev and has also influenced Mr. Kerry’s schedule. In planning Mr. Kerry’s itinerary, the State Department had sought to organize a visit to an Eastern European country that was seeking closer ties with the European Union following Mr. Kerry’s first European stop, a two-day NATO meeting here. American officials believed they were closing in on an accord last month until Mr. Karzai raised fresh demands and suggested that he would not sign the agreement until after elections for a new president in April.
“Had that been the case with Ukraine, it would have been a tougher decision whether to go to the O.S.C.E., but since that didn’t happen we’re going where the European decisions were made,” said the State Department official, who declined to be named in accordance with diplomatic protocol. Many of the United States’ allies are also pressing for an earlier signing, arguing that they need the time to secure political support and the financial resources from their parliaments for keeping troops in Afghanistan to train and advise Afghan forces.
Mr. Kerry’s visit to Moldova on Wednesday will last only several hours. But it is intended to demonstrate American support for Moldova, which has faced retaliation from Moscow, including a ban on its wine exports to Russia, for seeking closer ties with the European Union. The accord that is being negotiated between Afghanistan and the United States, known as the bilateral security agreement, is also a template for a similar status-of-forces agreement that would be signed by NATO nations with Afghanistan.
“Moldova has come under some pressure from its big neighbor,” the senior State Department official said. “So among the things that we’re working on with the E.U. as we support Moldova moving forward is helping the Moldovan wine industry find new markets. The European Union has already reduced or dropped all of its tariffs on Moldovan wine.” “I look forward to its timely signature,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO’s secretary general, said Tuesday. “If there is no signature on the legal agreement, there can be no deployment and the planned assistance will be put at risk,” alluding to military as well as economic assistance.
Mr. Kerry also plans to meet Tuesday morning with Maia Panjikidze, the foreign minister of Georgia, another former Soviet state that has sought political and trade pacts with the European Union. A particular concern is that the legal understandings be in place by February when NATO defense ministers are to discuss the details of the post-2014 mission in Afghanistan, a senior State Department official said.
The main business for foreign ministers who are gathering at NATO on Tuesday and Wednesday concerns planning for the alliance’s summit next year and pondering what to do about Afghanistan. With Mr. Karzai presenting additional demands, including the release of prisoners being held by the United States at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the Obama administration is calculating that a unified NATO response may concentrate minds in Kabul.
The NATO meetings include sessions with the acting Afghan foreign minister, Zarar Ahmad Muqbil, and the Afghan interior minister, Umar Daudzai. Two senior Afghan officials — the acting Afghan foreign minister, Zarar Ahmad, and the Afghan interior minister, Mohammad Umer Daudzai — are scheduled to join a NATO meeting here on Wednesday morning. Mr. Daudzai, who previously served as Mr. Karzai’s chief of staff and then as Afghanistan’s ambassador in Pakistan and Iran, is close to the Afghan president.
The alliance has been planning to take on the mission of training Afghan forces after its combat role ends in 2014, but the future of that mission has been clouded by President Hamid Karzai’s refusal so far to sign an agreement with the United States that provides the legal foundation for a continued American military presence. The Obama administration has urged that Mr. Karzai sign the bilateral security accord before the end of the year, and not wait until after the election.
The accord, known as the Bilateral Security Agreement, is also a template for a similar Status of Forces Agreement that would be signed by NATO nations with Afghanistan. John R. Allen, the former senior American commander in Afghanistan and a retired Marine Corps general, has written that it is a mistake for the White House to insist that the issue be decided before the end of the year and has urged a more flexible policy.
The Obama administration has said that Mr. Karzai must sign the bilateral accord before the end of the year, and not leave that decision to an Afghan president who will be elected in April, or the United States will begin making plans to withdraw its troops. Instead, he asserted that the White House should continue to prepare for a post-2014 mission of carrying out counterterrorism missions and training and supporting Afghan forces and wait to see to if the next Afghan president will endorse the accord.
At the same time, the Obama administration has said that the decision of a loya jirga, or meeting of Afghan leaders, to support the accord represents the will of the Afghan people. “It would be a mistake to let one man, increasingly detached from Afghan public and political opinion, determine the fate of the American role in South Asia,” General Allen said in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times last week that he wrote with Michael E. O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution.
Retired Gen. John R. Allen, the former senior American commander in Afghanistan, has written that it is a mistake for the White House to insist that the issue be decided before the end of the year. “The United States should stay patient,” he wrote. “It can say to Mr. Karzai, if you want to reinforce Afghan democracy by letting your successor sign this security deal, we can live with that.”
Instead, he said, the White House should stick to its plan to train and support Afghan forces and wait to see to if the next Afghan president will endorse the accord. But Mr. Kerry made it clear that the Obama administration has a much tighter timetable in mind and believes that the United States and its allies need all the time they can get to prepare the handover to Afghan forces.
“It would be a mistake to let one man — increasingly detached from Afghan public and political opinion — determine the fate of the American role in South Asia,” General Allen noted in an Op-Ed article he wrote in The New York Times last week with Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, a research group. “This is not fooling around,” Mr. Kerry said at a news conference at NATO headquarters.
“The United States should stay patient,” the article said. “It can say to Mr. Karzai, if you want to reinforce Afghan democracy by letting your successor sign this security deal, we can live with that.” “How do you give confidence to the people of Afghanistan?” he said. “How do you give confidence to all those people running for office next year who are looking for some certainty as to what the basis and foundation of that election might be about?
“Can you muddle through? Can you do other things? That is not the issue,” Mr. Kerry said. “The issue is how do you get the best transition possible.”