Notwithstanding President Hamid Karzai's
reluctance to sign the bilateral security agreement, the US has said
that though it is open to signing of the pact
later in the year, the longer it takes the more challenging it will be to
execute any mission post 2014 in Afghanistan. President Barack Obama called
Karzai on Tuesday in order to discuss preparations for Afghanistan's upcoming
elections, the Afghan-led peace and reconciliation efforts and, specifically,
the bilateral security agreement (BSA),
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said.
"It has been indicated that it is
unlikely by President Karzai he will sign it, the (US) President (Barack Obama)
made clear in his call today that we are preparing for the possibility of no
troops in Afghanistan beyond the end of the year and we are open to the signing
of a bilateral security agreement later in the year, but the longer it takes to
get there, by necessity, because of the planning, the smaller the mission will
be beyond 2014, both in size and ambition," Carney told reporters.
Obama told Karzai that because he (Karzai)
has demonstrated that it is unlikely that he will sign the BSA, the US is
moving forward with additional contingency planning. "We have been calling
on the Afghan government to complete that process, to sign that agreement,
which was negotiated in good faith, and do so promptly. "It is not subject
to renegotiation, and I'm not sure I've heard members of Congress suggest that
it should be. What I think has been amply demonstrated is that we've been
pressing very hard for the Karzai government to complete the process by signing
the BSA," he added. Carney said it has always been envisioned by the US
and its NATO allies that they would draw down to zero by the end of this year.
The prospect of a force beyond 2014 has always been a policy goal dependent
upon a BSA being signed, he said.
Afghanistan–United
States relations
can be traced to 1921 but the first contact between the two occurred further
back in 1830s when the first recorded person from the United States was
visiting Afghanistan. In the last decade, Afghan-American relations have become
stronger than ever before. According to a 2006 BBC poll, the U.S. was the most favored
country in Afghanistan.
The first recorded contact between
Afghanistan and the United States occurred in 1830s when Josiah Harlan, an
American adventurer and political activist from the Philadelphia area of
Pennsylvania, traveled to the Indian subcontinent with intentions of becoming
the King of Afghanistan. It was when the British Indian army invaded
Afghanistan, during the First Anglo-Afghan
War (1838–1842) when Afghan kings Shuja Shah Durrani and Dost Mohammad Khan
were fighting for the throne of the Durrani Empire. Harlan became involved in
Afghan politics and factional military actions, eventually winning the title
Prince of Ghor in exchange for military aid. The British-Indian forces were
defeated and forced to make a complete withdrawal a few years later, with
around 16,500 of them being reported to be killed and captured in 1842. There
is no clear evidence as to what happened because the claim is made by William
Brydon, the lone survivor. Harlan is believed to have left Afghanistan around
the same period, eventually returning to the United States. In 1911, A.C.
Jewett arrived in Afghanistan to build a hydroelectric
plant near Kabul. He became the Chief Engineer for King Habibullah Khan.
Formerly an employee of General Electric (GE), he became the second American
known to live and work in Afghanistan.
Afghan-American relations became important
during the start of the Cold War, between the United States and Soviet Union.
Prince Mohammed Naim, King Zahir Shah's cousin, became the Chargé d'affaires in
Washington, D.C. At that time, U.S. President Harry S. Truman commented that
the friendship between the two countries would be "preserved and
strengthened" by the presence of senior diplomats in each capital. The
first official Afghanistan Ambassador to the United States was Habibullah Khan Tarzi, who served until
1953. The U.S. Kabul Legation was elevated to the U.S. Embassy Kabul on May 6,
1948. Louis Goethe Dreyfus, who previously served as Minister Plenipotentiary,
became the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from 1949 to 1951. The first American
expedition to Afghanistan was led by Louis Dupree, Walter Fairservis, and Henry
Hart. In 1953, Richard Nixon who was serving as U.S. Vice President at the time
made an official diplomatic visit to Kabul. He also took a short tour around
the city and met with local Afghans.
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's state
visit to Afghanistan on December 9, 1959. In 1958, Daoud Khan became the first Afghan to speak before the United
States Congress in Washington, DC. He was serving as Prime Minister of
Afghanistan at the time. His presentation focused on a number of issues, but
most importantly, underscored the importance of US-Afghan relations. While in
the US capital of Washington, Daoud met with President Dwight Eisenhower, signed
an important cultural exchange agreement, and reaffirmed personal relations
with Vice President Nixon that had begun during the latter's trip to Kabul in
1953. The Prime Minister also traveled around the United States visiting the
New York Stock Exchange, the Empire State Building, hydroelectric facilities at
the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and other sites.
On 2 May 2012, Afghan President Hamid Karzai
and The United States President Barack Obama signed a strategic partnership
agreement between the two countries, after the US president had arrived in
Kabul as part of unannounced trip to Afghanistan on the first anniversary of
Osama bin Laden's death. The U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement,
officially entiteled the "Enduring
Strategic Partnership Agreement between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and
the United States of America", provides the long-term framework for
the relationship between Afghanistan and the United States of America after the
drawdown of U.S. forces in the Afghanistan war. The Strategic Partnership
Agreement went into effect on July 4, 2012 as stated by US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton who said on July 8, 2012 at the Tokyo Conference on
Afghanistan: "Like a number of countries represented here, the United
States and Afghanistan signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement that went into
effect four days ago."
On 7 July 2012, as part of the Enduring
Strategic Partnership Agreement, the United States designated Afghanistan a
major non-NATO ally after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in
Kabul to meet with President Karzai. She said: "There are a number of
benefits that accrue to countries that have this designation... They are able
to have access to excess defense supplies, for example, and they can be part of
certain kinds of training and capacity building.
