KABUL: President Hamid Karzai will not attend a key Nato summit next week because of his disagreements with Washington over Afghan security needs after most foreign troops leave his country at the end of 2014, his spokesman said on Tuesday.
The September 4-5 summit in Wales is meant to determine how much aid Afghan security forces will get after Nato’s combat mission ends.
The alliance wants a smaller force to stay beyond 2014 to train and advise the security forces but it needs the Kabul government’s consent -- something Karzai has refused to give.
“It is because of his views and his position on the continuation of US and Nato military presence beyond 2014,” Karzai’s spokesman Aimal Faizi said.
“There is no change in that and the conditions are the same,” Faizi said, adding that Karzai had responded to the Nato invitation by saying either his successor as Afghan president or a member of the current government would attend instead.
Karzai’s relationship with Washington has soured during his final term in office and he has refused to sign a bilateral security deal with the US allowing its troops to stay beyond this year, demanding certain conditions be met first.
Those conditions include ending military operations on Afghan homes, taking steps towards making peace with the Taliban and returning Afghan inmates held at Guantanamo prison camp.
REUTERS
