TEHRAN - A senior Iranian official has claimed that Afghan people no more want foreign forces in their country and that the US forces are close to complete withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, has also claimed that Americans have realized that the Afghan nation will no longer tolerate the presence and interference of US-led forces in internal affaires of Afghanistan.

According to Iran’s Fars News Agency, the issue was shared during a meeting between Velayati and the UN special envoy for Afghanistan, Jan Kubis, in Tehran.

According to Velayati, Kubis has said that that the US officials are determined more than before to pull their forces out of Afghanistan.

“According to what the UN envoy said, the Americans think they should no longer have numerous military bases in Afghanistan so that they would be able to leave Afghanistan’s soil in the near future,” Velayati quoted by Fars News Agency said.

The remarks by the senior Iranian official comes as both United States and the NATO alliance have said they will keep forces in Afghanistan beyond 2014 to implement the NATO Resolute Support Mission to train and advise Afghan national security forces.

However, the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan beyond 2014 would be subject to signing of the bilateral security agreement between Kabul and Washington and the NATO status of forces agreement.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign the security agreement despite the draft agreement was approved by majority during the consultative Loya Jirga last year.

In the meantime, both the Afghan candidates, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah and Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, have vowed to sign the security deals once they take office as the next president of Afghanistan. (KP)