Hagel in Kabul amid crisis over vital U.S., Afghan security pact

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel arrived in Afghanistan for a weekend visit on Saturday but had no plans to meet President Hamid Karzai amid tensions over his refusal to sign a deal governing the post-2014 U.S. military presence, a senior U.S. official said.

Hagel was expected to visit U.S. and international troops across the country and to hold talks with Defense Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi and Interior Minister Umer Daudzai, a Pentagon spokesman, Carl Woog, said in a statement. A senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Hagel did not expect to meet Karzai amid the dispute over his refusal to sign a Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) recently endorsed by a loya jirga, an assembly of tribal elders and politicians.

"The United States has made its position on the BSA clear," the official said. "And just two days ago, President Karzai repeated his position to senior U.S. officials that he is not yet ready to sign the BSA and provided no timeline or practical steps for doing so."

Hagel follows a string of senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry and National Security Advisor Susan Rice, who have visited Afghanistan but had no success in persuading Karzai to sign the agreement. Hagel is the first to visit with no plans to meet Karzai. U.S. officials have been pressing for the BSA to be signed by the end of the year. They say that further delay would complicate military planning by the United States and other countries contributing to the military coalition fighting Islamist Taliban militants for 12 years. They have also cautioned that further delay might force the U.S. administration to consider a "zero option" in which all U.S. forces would be withdrawn at the end of 2014. But the top U.S. military officer said this week he had not been asked to plan for a complete withdrawal. "I've not been told to plan for a zero option, but clearly I understand that it is a possibility given the current impasse," Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told a Pentagon news conference. He said a variety of other options had been considered.

YEAR OF NEGOTIATIONS

Dempsey also acknowledged that the United States could wait until early in the summer of 2014 before the lack of a BSA became a factor affecting decisions about troop levels. "But, you know, don't forget that we're not in this alone," he added. "We've got 44, I think, contributing nations who have a different set of requirements to make their decisions. And so we will see an erosion of the coalition." There are 47,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The United States has been in discussions with Afghan officials about keeping a residual force of about 8,000 troops to train and assist Afghan forces after the end of the NATO combat mission. A year-long negotiation over the text of the BSA was thought to have been concluded last month when a loya jirga called by Karzai approved the pact. But Karzai surprised everyone during concluding remarks by saying he had additional demands, including an end to raids on Afghan homes by U.S. forces pursuing militants.