The US ambassador in Kabul James Cunningham has privately warned Washington that its efforts to persuade President Hamid Karzai to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement are likely to fail, the Washington Post has reported.
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The assessment, transmitted in recent days in a classified cable by Ambassador Cunningham, follows the administration's repeated extension of the deadline for an agreement it originally said it expected to complete early last fall.
President Obama's Press Secretary Jay Carney on earlier this week said that the document must be signed within "weeks, not months."
"If we cannot conclude a bilateral security agreement promptly," Carney said, "then we will be forced to initiate planning for a post-2014 future in which there would be no US nor NATO troop presence in Afghanistan. That's not the future we're seeking. . . . But the further this slips into 2014, the more likely that outcome will come to pass."
In the cable, Cunningham said he did not think Karzai would agree to sign the pact before a presidential election scheduled for April.
Host Zabi Sadaat, will discuss the implications of the report with the following guests:
• Daoud Asaas, Senator
• Abdul Qadir Zazai, MP
• Ali Shah Wijdan, political analyst
• Mohammad Younus Fakoor, political analyst