Obama, Karzai Discuss Withdrawal of Nato From Villages

US President Barack Obama telephoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday after Karzai demanded foreign forces leave remote military outposts to the Afghan forces.

While there was no official word as to whether the request would be met, a White House statement after the phonecall said the two leaders were in agreement that Afghanistan needed to take responsibility for its own security.

"The President's plan envisions an end to this war, and not just the hope for an end but the concrete measures that need to be taken to withdraw US forces, to transfer security lead over to Afghan forces, to give control of the country to Afghan forces so that our men and women can come home," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Friday after Obama's phonecall with Karzai.

"The two men very much share the goal of Afghanistan being able to be responsible for its own security, for Afghan forces to be able to do that and have the capacity to do that, and for mission to be successful, which is to further erode and ultimately defeat al-Qaeda and allow Afghanistan to be stable enough so that it will not become a haven for al-Qaeda in the future," Carney said.

Karzai said Thursday that the Nato-led mission needed to pull back its troops to the larger bases and leave the village areas, an apparent reaction to Sunday's shooting of 16 Afghan civilians by a US soldier in the remote district of Kandahar's Panjwai district.

"We emphasise we are ready to take over all security responsibilities for the country," Karzai said Thursday in a meeting with US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta.

Obama had made a statement after his meeting with Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday that the transition timetable for Afghan forces to take security responsibility would be brought forward to 2013 and the Nato-led mission would move into a mentor role, as opposed to a combat role.

Carney said the pace and scope of this transition would be determined based on ground realities.

"That's part of an overall strategy. But those kinds of on-the-ground decisions will be made within the framework of the overall strategy, but more at a ground level," he said.