Monday, August 26, 2013
Kabul (BNA): However, there are some differences on the Afghan-US Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) between the US and the Afghan
American officials but, the traditional Loya Jirga is expected to be held for discussing modality of the security agreement between Kabul and Washington.
The Jirga is also aimed to seek perspectives of Afghan people.
Elaborating on the Afghan-US Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), Emal Faizi, spokesman of president Karzai said, “Holding of the Traditional Loya Jirga is quite important for seeking public ideas about the modality of the pact, it’s vital to refer signing of the agreement to the Jirga to take the final decision, because the Jirga members are the genuine representatives of Afghan people and represent views of the Afghan people, so draft of the Jirga will be dispatched to the Jirga for further discussion”.
“President Karzai has assigned three persons to move the talks forward on the security agreement with the United States and the three personalities are including of Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Zalmai Rasoul, head of the Security Transition Commission (STC) Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai and Advisor for national security Dr. Rangeen Dadfar Spanta while previously Afghan ambassador to the US Aklil Ahmad Hakimi had the charge of negotiating with the US over the security agreement between Afghanistan and the United States, presidential spokesman Emal Faizi stated”.
“Ambassador Hakimi has already completed technical negotiations with the US over the security agreement and now, president Karzai has assigned three new faces to negotiate with the US political aspects of the bilateral security agreement, Emal Faizi said, adding that stance of the government of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan on the agreement is clear and Afghanistan expects that signing of the security agreement will lead to peace and security restoration and there should economic and security guarantees to Afghanistan post-2014 and Afghanistan should protected in case of any external threats”.
Although, the US side hasn’t officially commented on the demands of Afghan government, but the US presses that the Bilateral Security Agreement should be signed by the end of October.
In the meantime, civil society institutions and a number of political commentators have said that in the view of current circumstances, signing of the security agreement with the US is significant for political, economic and security stability of Afghanistan post-2014, they warn that any failure in signing the bilateral security agreement with the US could lay damaging impacts on future stability of Afghanistan.
Talking on the topic, political analyst, Younas Akhtar said, “Role of the United States is quite important for economic, political spheres and security of Afghanistan post-2014, government of Afghanistan by considering country’s national sovereignty and national interests should accelerate efforts for signing the BSA in proper timing so that misconceptions and speculations over the delay of the agreement are wiped out”.
Afghanistan extremely requires longstanding cooperation of international community and the security agreement with the US should be inked by maintaining the national interests, civil society institution activist Mujeeb Khelwatgar said”.
Meanwhile, country nationals have expressed hope that the agreement is signed soon, they urge upon the government of Afghanistan to convince the US to continue backing Afghanistan after the timeline set for evacuation of international forces from the country in 2014.
“it’s expected that international forces stationed in Afghanistan evacuate the country by the end of 2014 and security responsibilities of Afghanistan would be shouldered by the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), so, international community should provide military equipment’s the Afghan troops so that these forces are able to overcome on the security agreement, Amir Muhammad said”.
This came after the US and Afghanistan signed strategic cooperation partnership agreement in May 2012 and both countries engaged into a yearlong negotiation over the security agreement.
