On November 20th Secretary of State John Kerry countered an Afghan official’s claim that President Obama would apologize to “President Hamid Karzai or [the Afghan people] as part of [a security] deal.”
According to The New York Times, Kerry countered widespread November 19th reports of a pending apology by saying: “President Karzai didn’t ask for an apology. There was no discussion of an apology. I mean, it’s just not even on the table.”
Kerry’s statements “contradict statements from Afghan officials, including Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi.”
On November 19th Faizi said that “Mr. Karzai would drop his opposition to future American counterterrorism raids on private homes in return for a letter from President Obama acknowledging military mistakes that have hurt Afghans.”
Afghan officials have not yet responded to Kerry’s statements nor indicated whether they do in fact expect an apology to be part of a security deal.
Obama plans to leave “a force of somewhere between 8,000 and 12,000 [military] personnel [in Afghanistan beyond 2014] to train, advise, and assist Afghan forces.”
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins
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