US officials continue to make regular warnings of a full scale withdrawal from Afghanistan if President Karzai doesn’t sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) by the end of the month. It’s not getting anywhere.
That’s the message from key Karzai aide Aimal Fox, who in a statement today insisted that the US “will not achieve anything” by pressure and ultimatum, and that Karzai will not buckle to demands to sign the pact.
US and NATO officials have repeatedly pressed Karzai on the matter, but the Afghan President says he won’t sign until the April election, which ends his term in office.
Earlier this week, Secretary of State John Kerry even suggested that Karzai might be cut out of the deal entirely, and some other official might sign the BSA instead. The legality of that is extremely dubious, to say the least.
