Afghan President Hamid Karzai must sign a bilateral security deal on the future of American troops, says a senior US official.
"We've said that this needs to be signed as soon as possible," State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said, referring to a pact to govern the presence of US troops in Afghanistan beyond late 2014 when international forces will be withdrawn.
"Our position on that hasn't changed, and we'll continue the discussions with President Karzai, with the Afghans, about how to get this done as soon as possible."
The deal was hammered out during tough negotiations, which said it should be signed by the end of 2013. But after all the terms were agreed, Karzai backtracked and said it was up to the next president to sign it.
His move has infuriated Washington, which says without a deal in place it will be impossible to plan for a post-2014 presence to help train Afghan security forces.
However, the reality is that the deal is unlikely to be signed by December 31, and Harf said: "I don't want to put hard and fast deadlines on things."
