Dismissing President Hamid Karzai’s claims that it is seeking a permanent military base in Afghanistan, the US has said that its presence in the war-torn country would only be at Kabul’s invitation.
“The United States does not seek permanent military bases in Afghanistan, and any US presence after 2014 would only be at the invitation of the Afghanistan Government and aimed at training the country’s forces and targeting the remnants of Al Qaeda,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.
“As we have said, we envision that the bilateral security agreement will address access to and use of Afghanistan facilities by US forces. We seek no permanent military bases in Afghanistan. We’ve been very clear about that,” he said while travelling with US President Barack Obama to Texas on Thursday.
Carney was responding to questions on the statement made by Karzai, a day earlier in which he claimed that the US is seeking to have nine military bases in Afghanistan, and he is opposed to it.
“We seek no permanent bases. Any continued presence of US forces in Afghanistan beyond 2014 would be subject to an agreement between the Afghanistan government and the US government, and would only be at the request of the Afghanistan Government, and would only be for the purposes that I just mentioned,” he said.
Carney said the US President has made no decision on the post 2014 troop levels.