© UnknownAfghan President Hamid Karzai (R) and US President Barack Obama
President Barack Obama warns his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai that the US will pull all of its troops out of Afghanistan unless Kabul signs a controversial bilateral security deal.
President Obama conveyed the message in a recent phone call to Karzai, who has refused to sign the so-called bilateral security pact.
The latest conversation comes as Obama and Karzai have rarely spoken in recent months.
"President Obama told President Karzai that because he has demonstrated that it is unlikely that he will sign the BSA (Bilateral Security Agreement), the United States is moving forward with additional contingency planning," the White House said in a statement."Specifically, President Obama has asked the Pentagon to ensure that it has adequate plans in place to accomplish an orderly withdrawal by the end of the year should the United States not keep any troops in Afghanistan after 2014. Furthermore, the longer we go without a BSA, the more likely it will be that any post-2014 US mission will be smaller in scale and ambition," the statement added.
The Afghan president Karzai has delayed signing the pact despite repeated US and NATO warnings.
The Afghan president has grown increasingly hostile towards the US government over the security agreement that would allow thousands of American troops to remain beyond the 2014 withdrawal deadline.
Karzai has recently said he saw no good in more than a decade-long American presence in Afghanistan, noting that the US-led NATO mission has failed to bring security.
The president also warned that he will not allow continued foreign presence if it means more bombs and civilian killings.
This is while Afghans say American forces are responsible for the death of many civilians in their country.
Comment: Threat or promise? A US withdrawal is what Afghanistan has been hoping for since the start of the US war on Afghanistan in October 2001.