Kerry in Kabul to Try to Break Power-Sharing Deadlock
US Secretary of State John Kerry
attends a meeting with an Afghan presidential candidate at the US embassy in Kabul. (Massoud Hossaini/Getty Images)
Thursday, 07 Aug 2014 11:03 AM
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Afghanistan on Thursday for his
second visit in under a month to push a deal between the country's two
presidential candidates on how to share power after an audit of a disputed
election is complete.
Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah shook
hands on an agreement to resolve the election row after Kerry's visit in July,
but they remain far apart on critical components of their pact to form a united
government.
Although a painstaking audit of all eight
million ballots cast in the second round of voting is underway, neither
candidate has openly endorsed the process and the deadlock has raised the
spectre of violent conflict along ethnic lines.
Afghanistan's Western backers hope the audit will
produce a legitimate president before a NATO summit in
early September, and Kerry will meet both candidates as well as President Hamid
Karzai to drive forward the deal.
While Karzai has said the next president
will be inaugurated on Aug. 25, most officials involved in the process say the
deadline is optimistic and it could take until the end of the month for a
winner to emerge at the earliest.
"We are hopeful the secretary can
obtain a commitment by both candidates to a timeline for completing the audit
and agreeing on the details of a national unity government," said a senior
State Department official who briefed reporters en route to Kabul.
NATO desperately wants Afghanistan
to have a leader at the summit that was to be a crowning moment of its mission
of more than a decade, and before Western combat troops withdraw at the end of
2014.
NATO
John R.
Allen was a supreme allied commander Europe
nominee for NATO, and is a fellow at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Note: Ivo
H. Daalder was a U.S.
permanent representative for NATO, and a senior
fellow at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Brookings Institution (think tank).
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to
Promote Open Society.
Cameron
F. Kerry is a fellow at the Brookings Institution
(think tank), and John F. Kerry’s
brother.
Teresa
Heinz Kerry is an honorary trustee at the Brookings
Institution (think tank), and married to John F.
Kerry.
John F. Kerry
is married to Teresa Heinz Kerry, and the secretary
at the U.S. Department
of State for the Barack Obama
administration.
Martin
S. Indyk was the assistant secretary & Middle East peace envoy for the U.S. Department of State,
a founding director at the Saban Center for Middle
East Policy, a U.S.
ambassador for Israel, and is a foreign
policy director for the Brookings Institution
(think tank).
Thomas
R. Pickering was a U.S.
ambassador for Israel, and is a distinguished
fellow at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
James
B. Cunningham was a U.S.
ambassador for Israel,
and is a U.S. ambassador for
Afghanistan.
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