KABUL - U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice has arrived in Afghanistan and will meet with President Hamid Karzai, the White House said on Monday.
"She will meet the president at his invitation," National Security Council Spokesman Patrick Ventrell said, adding that the meeting was one part of Rice's broader itinerary to "travel around country" and visit with U.S. troops, development experts and diplomats.
Ventrell did not say when the meeting between Rice and Karzai would take place.
Her visits comes a day after the a four-day Loya Jirga concluded on Sunday, endorsing the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), which would allow a residual U.S. troop presence to remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014, when the NATO combat mission ends.
A unanimous majority of the 2,500-member Jirga called on President Karzai to sign the document by the end of this year. But the Afghan president has said he will not sign the pact until after the April elections and laid out three preconditions to the U.S. for signing: transparent elections in April, no raids on Afghan homes and a breakthrough in talks with the Taliban.
He said now that the Jirga has endorsed the document, he will continue bargaining with officials in Washington over his three pre-conditions.
"If there is one more raid on Afghan homes by U.S. forces, there is no BSA. The U.S. can't go into our homes from this moment onward," President Karzai said in his closing remarks at the Jirga on Sunday.
The issue of U.S. unilateral operations was the final point of contention between Kabul and Washington last week, but was put to rest at the Jirga as participants voted in favor of the agreement that allowed for America to launch its own missions under certain circumstances.
Washington has said that it's "neither practical nor possible" to delay the signing of the pact. And many Afghan experts and political figures have come out to criticize Karzai and his preconditions, suggesting he is being irrational and/or only looking out for himself and not Afghanistan's national interests.
The Afghan President said he believed peace in Afghanistan is "first in the hands of the U.S. and secondly in the hands of Pakistan."
On Monday, political parties and analysts claimed Karzai was not thinking strategically, but rather emotionally, in the last few months of his tenure as President. They claimed his demands were contradictory, especially regarding the elections and peace process, given that he has pushed for those things to be entirely "Afghan-led" previously.
Many have argued Kabul needs the BSA more than Washington, which would mean Karzai is in no position to make outlandish demands.
According to the BSA approved by the Jirga on Sunday, which now awaits approval from the National Assembly, U.S.' residual forces post-2014 would be stationed in nine military bases in Afghanistan.
Although, representatives of central Bamyan province at the Jirga requested an additional base in their province as well.
The Jirga also accepted that U.S. soldiers should be prosecuted under American criminal jurisdiction if found to be involved in criminal activities, which was considered one of the most controversial elements of the accord. The same issue proved a deal-breaker when the U.S. was negotiating a similar deal with Iraq in 2011.
The U.S. is expected to keep roughly 10-15,000 troops in-country if the pact is finalized. If the BSA is not signed, the U.S. has said it would keep no troops in Afghanistan, a move which its allies would likely mimic, and would freeze some 4.1 billion USD in military funding to the Afghan forces.
There are still around 100,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, out of which 48,000 are said to be American.
The Afghan security forces currently number at around 350,000 men. They're greatest deficiency, according to experts, are logistics, which is one of the reasons many are adamant about the U.S. and other coalition countries continuing to advise, train and assist the Afghan forces beyond 2014. (Tolo News)