US seeks to broker a deal

US Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday sought to mediate an end to the political crisis in Afghanistan, warning that a bitter dispute over presidential polls threatened the country's future.
As the top US diplomat met separately with the rival candidates, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, Kerry stressed that results released Monday showing Ghani in the lead were "preliminary".
"They are neither authoritative nor final, and no-one should be stating a victory at this point in time," Kerry said, as he held back-to-back meetings in the heavily-fortified US embassy.
"We want a unified, stable, democratic Afghanistan. It is important that whoever is president is recognised by the people as having become president through a legitimate process," he said.
Despite Monday's announcement, Abdullah, who has already once lost a presidential bid in controversial circumstances, has declared himself the true winner, saying massive fraud robbed him of victory in the June 14 run-off vote.
In a swift boost for Kerry's diplomacy, Ghani threw his backing behind US calls for a wide audit of the elections.
A statement from the office of outgoing President Hamid Karzai said UN officials had put forward a plan late Thursday to audit some 8,000 ballot boxes, representing 43 percent of the total votes -- or around 3.5 million votes.
Abdullah thanked Kerry for coming as well as continued US support and for "the sacrifices that your people have done alongside the Afghans".
But he said that "the future of our achievement depends upon the success of the democratic process".
The election stand-off has sparked fears that protests could spiral into ethnic violence -- and even lead to a return of the fighting between warlords that ravaged Afghanistan during the 1992-1996 civil war.
UN officials have said a full audit of the results could take up to two weeks, but some Afghan officials are pressing to stick by an election calendar that would see the new president inaugurated on August 2.