Karzai in Paris to discuss French troop withdrawal

Jan 27, 2012, 11:36 GMT

Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai are to discuss the timetable for the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan and sign a long-term cooperation agreement in Paris on Friday.

Karzai's visit, the second stop in a European tour that took him to Italy and will take him to Britain, comes a week after four French soldiers were shot dead by an Afghan soldier during a joint training exercise.

The killings caused dismay in France and prompted a threat from Sarkozy to accelerate the withdrawal of the remaining 3,600 French troops, before a 2014 deadline for the departure of all foreign troops.

In the past few days, however, the government has rowed back from the threat, with Defence Minister Gerard Longuet reaffirming on Friday the timetable agreed by the NATO-led coalition at a summit in Lisbon in 2010.

'We have two years in front of us to organize the whole transition,' Longuet, who travelled to Afghanistan following the killing of the soldiers.

France would bring up the challenges raised by the withdrawal at a NATO meeting in Brussels next month, he said.

'We have announced our departure, we have to adapt our plan to that departure,' he told BFM TV and RMC radio in a joint interview.

The past few months has seen a number of attacks by Afghan security forces against coalition forces, cementing suspicions that the Taliban has infiltrated the police and army.

'We have to take this new (Taliban) methods into account,' Longuet said.

Sarkozy suspended all operations with the Afghan army in the wake of Friday's attacks. The government is demanding 'credible guarantees' from Karzai about army recruitment procedures.

The opposition Socialist Party has called for all the troops to be brought home by the end of 2012. Some 400 troops already returned in 2011.

Sarkozy told a memorial service for the four dead soldiers Wednesday that France would not be 'intimidated' by 'barbarism'.

France has also pledged to continue support for Afghanistan beyond 2014.

Sarkozy and Karzai are to sign a 20-year 'friendship and cooperation treaty' on Friday, covering education, health and the rule of law, among other domains.

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