WASHINGTON - The US Secretary of State, John Kerry, has telephoned Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Abdullah Abdullah and sought to resolve their differences, the State Department said.
“The Secretary spoke with both President Ghani and CEO Thursday morning about the importance of continuing to move forward with the political and economic reforms that they're trying to enact and that all those reforms,” the State Department Spokesman John Kirby told reporters at his daily news conference.
The US understood that they were hard to come by, will be key to try to get to that kind of future in Afghanistan,” Kirby said amidst reports of sharp differences between Ghani and Dr Abdullah.
Responding to a question, Kirby said there can be no possible certain date on elimination of terrorism in Afghanistan.
“I can't possibly put a date certain on the elimination of the terrorist threat in Afghanistan. And Afghanistan isn't the only country that continues to face a very real threat from terrorism,” he said.
“We know that groups like Daesh are trying to expand their influence there and we know that not every member of the Taliban has, and is willing to embrace the political process moving forward,” he said in response to a question.
That was why it was important that the United States continued to make clear our intention and our support of a strong, sovereign, secure, stable Afghanistan, he asserted.
Kirby said on the occasion of its Independence Day, America’s message to the Afghan people and to the Afghan government was that their future mattered to the United States.
“As we have long said, we intend to be a partner, we intend to be a friend on many levels, not just from a security sector but from a diplomatic, economic and a political level of effort and that's not going to change,” Kirby said.(Pajhwok)