NATO warns of security crisis in Afghanistan

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has warned of security crisis in Afghanistan unless the Kabul government signs the so-called bilateral security agreement with the United States.

“It would be difficult to maintain provision of funds to Afghan national security forces in the absence of coalition forces in Afghanistan,” the NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in an interview on Tuesday.

Rasmussen also expressed doubts regarding President Hamid Karzai’s intention to sign the controversial security deal.

The fate of the security pact between the two countries remains in limbo as President Karzai refuses to sign it. The Afghan president 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.

Thousands of Afghan civilians, including a large number of women and children, have been killed during night raids by foreign forces and CIA-run assassination drone strikes.

Afghan political figures have also heaped scorn on US-led forces for committing unforgivable crimes against Afghan women and children since invading the country in 2001.