Afghanistan will sign a deal to allow U.S. troops to remain in that country beyond the end of the year, a senior White House official said Monday.
The deal will be signed Tuesday, White House senior adviser John Podesta told reporters in a news conference after the swearing-in of new Afghan President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.
Podesta, who led the U.S. delegation to the ceremony, said he would sign it on behalf of President Obama.
Though the U.S. plans to end its combat mission in Afghanistan by the end of the year, Obama announced May 27 that he would leave 9,800 troops as advisers through 2015 and half that number through 2016 — if Kabul agrees to sign a bilateral security pact negotiated between the two countries.
Outgoing President Hamid Karzai had refused to sign the pact, and it sat in limbo for months after Afghanistan’s elections this spring while the two rival candidates, Ghani Ahmadzai and incoming chief executive Abdullah Abdullah worked out a power-sharing deal.
Monday’s ceremony marked the first democratic transfer of power since a U.S.-led coalition toppled the Taliban government in 2001. As of Wednesday, 2,208 U.S. troops have died in that effort, and 19,882 have been wounded, according to the Pentagon.
