Post date: Jan 11, 2013 9:51:9 PM
Obama says U.S. and coalition forces will move to a support role in the Afghan conflict this spring. He plans to announce the next steps in the troop drawdown in the coming months.
WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (JANUARY 11, 2013) (NBC) - U.S. President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed on Friday (January 11) to speed up the handover of combat operations in Afghanistan to Afghan forces this year, underscoring Obama's determination to move decisively to wind down the long, unpopular war.
Saying that Afghan forces were being trained and were "stepping up" faster than expected, Obama said Afghan troops would take over the lead in combat missions across the country this spring, rather than waiting until the summer, as was originally planned."As Afghan forces take the lead and as President Karzai announces the final phase of the transition, coalition forces will move to a support role this Spring," Obama said at a joint news conference with Karzai.
Obama said U.S. troops who stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014 will have a narrow focus.
"First - training and assisting Afghan forces and second -- targeted counter-terrorism missions against al Qaeda and its affiliates," he said.
There are some 66,000 U.S. troops currently in Afghanistan. NATO allies have also been steadily reducing their troop numbers there with the aim of ending the foreign combat role in 2014, despite doubts about the ability of Afghan forces to shoulder full responsibility for security.
Obama said final decisions on this year's troop reductions and the post-2014 U.S. military role were still months away, but his comments raised the prospects of an accelerated withdrawal timetable as the security transition proceeds.
Precisely how much of an acceleration was unclear.
"I can't give you a precise number at this point. I'll probably make a separate announcement once I've gotten recommendations from troop -- from the generals and our commanders in terms of what that drawdown might look like," Obama said.
The Obama administration has been considering a residual force of between 3,000 and 9,000 troops in Afghanistan to conduct counter-terrorism operations while providing training and assistance for Afghan forces.
Karzai said troop levels were a matter for the U.S. to decide.
"It's an issue for the United States. Numbers are not going to make a difference to the situation in Afghanistan. It's the broader relationship that will make a difference toAfghanistan and, beyond, in the region," he said.
Both leaders also threw their support behind tentative Afghan reconciliation efforts withTaliban insurgents. They each voiced support for the establishment of a Taliban political office in the Gulf state of Qatar in hopes of bringing insurgents to inter-Afghan talks.
"We agreed on allowing a Taliban office in Qatar -- in Doha, where the Taliban will engage in direct talks with the representatives of the Afghan High Council for Peace, where we will be seeking the help of relevant regional countries, including Pakistan," Karzai said.
"From our perspective, it is not possible to reconcile without the Taliban renouncing terrorism, without them recognizing the Afghan constitution," Obama said.
Karzai's visit, which follows a year of growing strains in U.S.-Afghan ties, comes amid stepped-up deliberations in Washington over the size and scope of the U.S. military role in Afghanistan once the NATO-led combat mission concludes at the end of next year.
Obama once called Afghanistan a "war of necessity," but he is heading into a second term looking for an orderly way out of the conflict, which was sparked by the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks by al Qaeda on the United States.
He said the U.S. had come close to dismantling al Qaeda, the central goal of the war.
"We achieved our central goal, which is -- or have come very close to achieving our central goal -- which is to de-capacitate al Qaeda; to dismantle them; to make sure that they can't attack us again," Obama said.
Karzai and his U.S. partners have not always seen eye to eye, even though the American military has been seen as crucial to securing his tenure from insurgents' attempts to oust him.