Afghan security pact will be signed

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel yesterday said he had received assurances during a visit to Kabul that a long-delayed deal allowing US troops to stay in Afghanistan after 2014 would be signed “in a timely manner”.
The Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) has been at the centre of a public dispute between the allies, with the US increasingly frustrated by President Hamid Karzai’s negotiating tactics over the deal.
After meetings in the Afghan capital, Hagel told reporters that Defence Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi “assured me the BSA (bilateral security agreement) would be signed in a timely manner”.
Washington and its allies have repeatedly appealed to Karzai to sign the BSA, which lays out the rules for US and NATO troops to operate in the country after 2014 on a mission focused on training and countering Al-Qaeda-linked extremists.