Afghanistan will sign long-delayed security agreements with the United States and NATO on Tuesday, allowing some 12,500 Western soldiers to remain in the country after their combat mission ends at the end of the year, officials said.
“A senior security official will sign the bilateral security agreement with the US tomorrow in Kabul,” Daud Sultanzoy, an advisor to new Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, told dpa.
“The president will not sign and he will not be present because this is a security deal and it requires to be signed by a security official,” he added.
NATO’s Special Civilian Representative Maurits R. Jochems will sign a status of forces agreement with an Afghan official, the military alliance said.
A US embassy official said John Podesta, a senior advisor to President Barack Obama, will sign the other agreement on behalf of the US.
Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai was slated to sign the bilateral security agreement last year, but he refused to do so.
The announcement came as Ghani was sworn in as the new president of Afghanistan in the country’s first democratic transfer of power.
GNA
