Showing posts with label Afghan government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghan government. Show all posts
Afghanistan has enough evidence to try only 16 of 88 prisoners that the United States considers a threat to security and plans to free the remaining detainees, the president’s spokesman said on Thursday.
The move will further strain relations between the two countries that are already near breaking point over President Hamid Karzai’s refusal to sign a security deal to shape the U.S. military presence after most foreign troops leave this year.
Without a deal, Washington could pull most of its troops out after 2014.
The United States is strongly opposed to their release because it says the prisoners, being held in Afghanistan, have been involved in the wounding or killing of U.S. and coalition troops.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Thursday the United States considers 72 of those detainees dangerous.
“These 72 detainees are dangerous criminals against whom there is strong evidence linking them to terror-related crimes, including the use of improvised explosive devices, the largest killer of Afghan civilians,” Psaki said at a news briefing.
She said “time will tell” whether the release of the detainees will affect the signing of the agreement. Psaki said it was in the interest of the Afghan people and its government to sign it.
The Afghan government says, however, there is no evidence against 45 of the 88 prisoners, while the evidence against a further 27 detainees is not sufficient to put them on trial.
“We cannot allow innocent Afghan citizens to be kept in detention for months and years without a trial for no reason at all,” Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, told Reuters.
“We know that unfortunately this has been happening at Bagram, but it is illegal and a violation of Afghan sovereignty and we cannot allow this anymore.”
The president’s decision came after the head of Afghanistan’s spy agency presented the cases against the prisoners at meeting on Thursday morning.
U.S. senators visiting Afghanistan last week said releasing the prisoners would irreparably damage ties with the United States, but stopped short of saying it would prompt a full military withdrawal.
On Thursday, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham said they had made clear to Karzai in Kabul last week their objections to the release, and said there could be some action in response.
“We are in contact with our military and civilian leaders in Afghanistan and will determine what course of action is appropriate once we have received additional information,” the two Republicans said in a statement.
Karzai has called the so-called “zero option” an empty threat and suggested any security deal can wait until after the presidential elections in April. The United States says it needs time to prepare a post-2014 mission.
The Afghan government has only “weeks and not months” to sign the security agreement with the United States, White House press secretary Jay Carney said.
The United States has been pressing the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement, saying a signed document is needed to plan how many U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan to train Afghan security forces and conduct counterterrorism operations after the U.S.-led NATO coalition forces complete their withdrawal by the end of this year.
Carney, in his media briefing Monday, said as each day passes in the new year, “it becomes harder to plan with our NATO allies for a post-2014 mission because we can’t do that without a BSA that’s signed after it’s been negotiated.” The agreement has already been overwhelmingly approved by Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga council of elders last November.
“And as you know, there were commitments by the Afghan government to complete that by the end of the year,” Carney said.
If the BSA is not signed, there may not be any U.S. or NATO troop presence after this year. Karzai, however, has so far refused to sign it unless there are more guarantees, including additional assurances that civilians will be protected. He has also said it should be signed only by Afghanistan’s new president after the April elections.
Earlier, the United States had wanted the agreement by end of last December.
Carney said while U.S. President Barack Obama believes that the “best policy” is to maintain a presence in Afghanistan, “he cannot and will not do that absent a BSA.”
While Carney would not comment on any new timeframe to sign the agreement, he said if the BSA is not concluded promptly, “then we will be forced to initiate planning for a post-2014 future in which there would be no U.S., nor NATO troop presence in Afghanistan. That’s not the future we’re seeking.”
“Look, I don’t have a specific deadline or other policy decisions to announce today, but I can tell you that we’re talking about weeks and not months,” Carney added. “And the clock is ticking for the reasons I laid out. We can’t contemplate a continued presence there absent a signed bilateral security agreement.”
The United States has refused to make any changes in the agreement as it took more than a year of intense negotiations just to arrive at the final draft presented to the Loya Jirga. With an agreement in place, up to 15,000 foreign soldiers would remain in Afghanistan to train the Afghan forces and conduct counter-terrorism operations.
Without a signed agreement, Afghanistan may also lose billions of dollars of international aid it badly needs to bolster its security forces.
NATO Secretary-General Andres Fogh Rasmussen has said a NATO Status of Forces Agreement cannot be signed until the agreement with the United States is concluded.
Posts
