WASHINGTON (PAN): The United States is not endorsing any candidate for the next year’s presidential elections, a senior US official said Wednesday as the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, James Dobbins, arrived in Kabul to hold talks with the top Afghan leaders on a range of issues including the bilateral security agreement (BSA) and elections.
“It's up to the Afghans to decide who will represent them in their elections. That's the point of having elections. It's for the Afghans to decide that. The US doesn't take a position, doesn't endorse a candidate, doesn't endorse a party,” the State Department Deputy Spokesperson, Marie Harf, told reporters at her daily news conference.
She said the US believed that a peaceful and timely political transition through this kind of inclusive and credible electoral process was critical for Afghan stability and democratic development.
She informed one of the topics Dobbins was primarily talking about was the 2014 elections preparations and helping the Afghans continue making progress.
“We've been very clear that even after 2014, if we conclude a BSA with Afghanistan; we're open to keeping a small residual force there to carry out two specific and narrow missions, one of which is counterterrorism, to target the remnants of Al Qaida and its affiliates. We've been very clear that even as the war winds down, that's a top national security priority for us,” Harf said.
Seeking an early inking of BSA, Harf said BSA was overwhelmingly approved by the Afghan people themselves through the Consultative Loya Jirga, which was incredibly important, also had been voiced support for the BSA from some of Afghanistan's neighbors.
“So what we're focused on right now is working with Afghanistan to get this signed in a timely manner, to give the Afghan people the assurances they need, to give us and our partners the assurances we need going into planning for a post-2014 Afghanistan,” she said.
Meanwhile at a Pentagon news conference, the Defense Secretary, Chuck Hagel, said it was for the lawyers to decide as to who could sign the BSA between Afghanistan and the USA.
“The issue of who has the authority to speak for the sovereign nation of Afghanistan, I suppose the lawyers can figure that out. What we would be interested in, certainly as Secretary of Defense, is whatever document is agreed to, has to go to their parliament for ratification, not unlike our Senate and a treaty,” he said.
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