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Obama: International community supports Afghanistan exit strategy
US President Barack Obama declared Sunday that the world was behind his strategy to end the war in Afghanistan, as more than 50 leaders gathered to hammer out a withdrawal plan at a key North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit.
The United States recognized the “hardship” Afghanistan had been through and realized its people “desperately want peace and security,” Obama said as he met Afghan President Hamid Karzai on the sidelines of the Chicago talks.
“What this NATO summit reflects is that the world is behind the strategy that we have laid out,” Obama told reporters. “Now it is our task to implement it effectively.”
Karzai said his country no longer wants to be a “burden,” urging the international community to complete a security transition to his Afghan forces as it pulls out 130,000 troops by the end of 2014.
“Afghanistan… is looking forward to an end to this war and a transformational decade in which Afghanistan will be working further for institution building and the development of sound governance in the country,” Karzai said.
World leaders and international organizations were due to open their two-day summit later Sunday aimed at cementing the 2014 deadline from the decade-long war in Afghanistan and handing over security to Afghan forces.
They were meeting amid tight security in Obama’s hometown of Chicago, with police deployed along the main arteries, some on horseback, as Coast Guard boats mounted with machine guns patrolled the river.
