NEW YORK, Sept 14: US President George Bush discussed the security situation in Afghanistan with Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai in New York, a White House official said on Friday.

The meeting in New York focused on security, reconstruction and the war against terrorism, the official told a briefing.

“The principal focus of the discussion was the buildup of the Afghan national army. This again is an effort where the United States has led _ we have trained a battalion and the International Security Assistance Force and Britain have trained a battalion,” the official said.

He said that the United States and its allies have already trained four battalions of the Afghan national army.

The official said that Bush and Karzai also discussed measures for expediting the process, “what the ultimate size of the Afghan national army would be, and what the role of the existing militias would be”.

The discussions on counterterrorism, the official said, focused on “cooperation between the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan, to deal with the problems from Taliban, al Qaida, other extremists such as Hekmatyar.”

He said the biggest item on their agenda was the Kabul-Kandhar-Heart road project, which was about 1,000kms long and would take three years to complete.

Apart from the United States, Saudi Arabia and Japan have contributed 50 million dollars each for this 180 million dollars project.