News Digest

Afghan president sworn in, paving way for U.S. troops past 2014

Ashraf Ghani’s government will sign a long-delayed deal on Tuesday to allow some U.S. troops to stay in Afghanistan into next year, an adviser to the new president told AFP. Under the deal, the U.S. deployment in Afghanistan will be scaled back to around 9,800 by the start of 2015. Those forces will be halved by the end of 2015, before being reduced to a normal embassy presence by the end of 2016. Along with troops from NATO allies such as Germany and Italy, the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan in early 2015 will be about 12,500-strong.

The signing sends the message that President Ghani fulfills his commitments. He promised it would be signed the day after inauguration, and it will be.

Daoud Sultanzoy, a senior aide of Ashraf Ghani

The bilateral security agreement became a symbol of frayed U.S.-Afghan ties when President Hamid Karzai refused to sign the deal last year, infuriating Washington and other international allies. Ghani is likely to reset relations with the U.S. at a difficult time for Afghanistan as most NATO troops leave and international aid is pared back. Both Ghani and his poll rival Abdullah Abdullah claimed to have won the election, plunging Afghanistan into months of crisis that fueled the insurgency and worsened the country’s dire economic outlook.