KABUL - White House spokesman Jay Carney said that if Afghanistan wants U.S. troops to remain in-country beyond 2014, the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) should be signed within weeks. He warned that further delay to the agreement would push Washington toward the "Zero Option", a complete drawdown.
The stalemate on the BSA has caused some hand-wringing in the administration of Barack Obama, which has been pushing for the pact, especially with the chaos in Iraq serving as a fresh reminder of why the security deal could be so important. In that way, the future stability of Afghanistan is also considered to be tied up with the Kabul-Washington accord.
It now seems that Washington intends to put new, heightened pressure on Kabul to finalize the agreement, which took over a year to negotiate before finally being voted on and approved by a Loya Jirga in Kabul back in November of 2013.
"Look, I don't have a specific deadline or other policy decision to announce today," Carney to reporters in a press conference. "But I can tell you that we are talking about weeks, and not months. And, you know, the clock is ticking."
Washington has warned that the delay in signing the security agreement threatens the negotiated presence of eight to 12 thousand American soldiers in Afghanistan after 2014, which could leave the Afghan forces in 2015 to combat the Taliban entirely on their own.
"Our position continues to be that if we cannot conclude a bilateral security agreement promptly, then we will be forced to initiate planning for a post-2014 future in which there would be no U.S. or NATO troop presence in Afghanistan," Carney said.
U.S. officials have indicated the sooner the agreement is signed the better, for the practical reason of being able to plan troop deployments and logistics for any possible residual force expected to stay behind after the NATO combat mission ends to help train and advise the Afghan forces.
In response to the U.S. deadline, the Afghan Presidential Palace stood firm on the preconditions rolled-out by Karzai following the Jirga, which have garnered both praise and rebuke since.
"Following the Jirga decision, the people of Afghanistan recommended restoration of peace as one of their preconditions, they also demanded the handover of Guantanamo prisoners to the Afghan forces," said Adela Raz, a deputy spokesman for President Hamid Karzai. "If these preconditions are honored, naturally the BSA would be signed."
Karzai announced at the closing ceremony of the Jirga back in November, much to U.S. officials' surprise and shigrin, that he would not sign the BSA until after the April elections, and only then, if the U.S. helped get Taliban peace talks on track and ended its unilateral operations involving Afghan homes.
And in a recent meeting with the Italian Deputy Prime Minister, Karzai reaffirmed his previous stance on the issue. The President seemed to confirm that he thought the BSA was critical to Afghanistan's future, but again put the ball in Washington's court, calling on U.S. officials to fully cooperate with his demands.
A similar deal was being brokered between Iraq and the U.S. back in 2011 before it unraveled around the issue of criminal jurisdiction over American troops. Iraq has since devolved into crippling sectarian and civil conflict.
In addition to a residual troop presence, military aid funding is expected to be tied up in the BSA. Meaning, the billion-dollar funding tap of financial support from the U.S. could be entirely cut off by the end of this year if no deal is struck. (Tolo news)