It remains gravely uncertain that how many US troops and troops from other NATO countries will remain in Afghanistan. The hysteria to pull out foreign forces from Afghanistan has doubled in Western countries. They have announced certain dates for their troops’ withdrawal. However, the US and its allies remain firm to the complete drawdown of their forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

Meanwhile, an agreement between the US and Afghan government is yet to come. The agreement is expected to specify what number of US forces will remain in Afghanistan after 2014 and what will be their roles and responsibilities. Before an agreement takes places, President Karzai says that the US is not going to quit Afghanistan.

Over the past two months or so President Hamdi Karzai has put efforts to depict that all is not in the hand of American and it cannot do whatsoever it wants in this country. Mr. Karzai has banned ANSF from requesting airstrikes from NATO forces as according to him such airstrikes result civilian casualties. He has also ordered the US Special Forces to withdraw from key province of Maidan Wardak which is only 25 km away from the capital Kabul. Although the US authorities including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel have put pressure on Karzai to change his decision, no improvement on the issue is in place yet. The president has also been emphasizing on immediate transfer of Bagram prison to Afghan control. However, the transfer has been postponed and the US authorities fear that Afghan authorities would not be able to manage the prison properly.

Karzai has also passed some remarks which have not gone well with the US authorities. On Jan 10, Karzai in his televised speech accused the Taliban to destabilize Afghanistan and make ground feasible for long term presences of US troops in Afghanistan after 2014. With such a condition what will be the fate of the Afghan-US dialogue on future cooperation between the two governments and on the quantity of American troops that will remain in Afghanistan after 2014 is not known. Nonetheless, President Karzai firmly believes that Americans have no plan to leave Afghanistan. “The US has to come to Afghanistan not for leaving but for staying here,” Karzai said in program arranged by BBC and state television of Afghanistan under the title ‘Azad Jirga’ which was aired on Monday, March 18.  

Based on the same mentality, he passed remarks that were not expected by US. However, it seems that the relations between US and Afghanistan are not in best and they need to be improved if a better and stable future has to be achieved for Afghanistan.