| February 16, 2009 | Monday | Safar 20, 1430 |
| February 16, 2009 | Monday | Safar 20, 1430 |
KABUL, Feb 15: The Afghan government would take part in a US strategic review of the war in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai said on Sunday in a sign of increased cooperation at a time of strained relations.
Mr Karzai recently sent President Barack Obama a letter with a proposal that Afghanistan join a war review currently under way.
The US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, said at a joint news conference that Mr Obama had “welcomed the suggestion”.
President Karzai said his foreign minister, Dadfar Rangin Spanta, would head a delegation to the US.
Washington has several reviews of the situation in Afghanistan under way, and it is not immediately clear which one Afghan officials would take part in.
Mr Holbrooke later told Afghanistan’s Tolo TV that Pakistan was also sending a strategic review team to Washington alongside Mr Karzai’s team.
Mr Karzai told the news conference he was “grateful” for an agreement announced on Thursday between Afghanistan and the US military that Afghan forces would take on a greater role in the planning and execution of missions with the aim of reducing civilian casualties.
He said he hoped the agreement would “reduce civilian casualties and prevent night-time raids.” Overnight raids by elite US Special Operations Forces cause many of the civilian deaths that President Karzai has repeatedly denounced, but the agreement made no mention that such targeted missions would end.
In recent weeks, Mr Karzai has publicly pressed the US to use Afghan troops on night raids to prevent civilian casualties, criticism that has added to recent tensions in the US-Afghan relationship.
The Afghan president said in an interview on Friday that he had not spoken with Mr Obama over the phone since the US president’s inauguration, a clear sign that Mr Karzai no longer enjoyed the favoured status he held with former president George W. Bush.—AP
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