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The article discusses Afghan President Hamid Karzai's approach to negotiations regarding a security agreement between the U.S. and Afghanistan as of November 26, 2013, highlighting Karzai's view that there will not be a withdrawal of American troops form Afghanistan in 2014. Topics addressed include criticisms of Karzai's approach from within Afghanistan's loya jirga leadership committee and Parliament, as well as potential political motivations for his refusal to accept a deal with the U.S.

The article reports on the bilateral security agreement between Afghanistan and the U.S. which was supported by tribal elders. It notes that the leaders at a loya jirga or assembly asked Afghan President Hamid Karzai to sign the agreement by the end of December 2013. However, President Karzai says that he would only sign the agreement after further negotiations and he demanded to stop that raids of American forces on Afghan homes.

The article discusses Islamic fundamentalist organization the Taliban's efforts to establish peace talks regarding the conflict in Afghanistan as of June 18, 2013, highlighting the Taliban's opening of a political office in Qatar. Topics addressed include the Taliban's political motivations and goals, and diplomatic relations between the Taliban, the U.S. government, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The article examines Afghan President Hamid Karzai's foreign policy towards the U.S. during his final expected year in office in 2013, noting that Karzai is attempting to distance Afghanistan from American dependence. The author states that despite negotiations to maintain a reduced level of U.S. military presence in Afghanistan in 2014 as well as for U.S. military and economic support, Karzai has appealed to Afghan nationalism to change perception of Afghanistan as subordinate to the U.S.

The article discusses Afghan President Hamid Karzai's claims that the United States has a goal of destabilizing Afghanistan. Topics addressed include a visit to Afghanistan by U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Karzai's criticism of the Western media's reporting on the future of Afghanistan after 2014, and the United States' relationship with the Taliban Islamic fundamentalist organization.

The article reports on the decision of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai to postpone signing the bilateral security agreement (B.S.A.) with the U.S. despite killings in the country.

The article reports that Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai accuses the U.S. Special Forces troops of killing civilians in a raid on an Afghan home, and states that he would not sign a long-term security agreement with the U.S.

The article announces that Umar Daudzai, Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, has been appointed by Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, as interior minister of the country.

The article reports that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has restrained the two strategic lines of the negotiation of the U.S. with the Taliban.

The article reports on the intensification of security measures ordered by American commander in Afghanistan after Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued an anti-American statements which put American troops at greater risk of attack both from militants and Afghan security forces.

The article reports on the plan of President Hamid Karzai to issue a decree that will prevent his military forces from turning to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or American forces to initiate airstrikes and use torture on detainees in Afghanistan.

The article focuses on a report published by the United Nations (UN) about the torture and abuse of detainees in detention facilities in Afghanistan, which was criticized by the country's officials, particularly President Hamid Karzai who appointed a commission to look into the report's findings. INSET: Names of the Dead.

The article reports the statement of Afghanistan and Western officials that a political interference hampers the efforts to solve the fraud and public inquiry at Kabul Bank with President Hamid Karzai and his top aides in Kabul, Afgahnistan. It mentions a watchdog commission's report that Mr. Karzi's aides, calls in the prosecutors to tell who would be indicted and its charges. It states the names to be convicted which are founder Sherkhan Farnood and former chief executive Khalilullah Frozi.

The article reports that six Taliban prisoners were executed following an order from Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai. It states that the six prisoners who were hanged at the Pol-e-Charki prison in Kabul, Afghanistan. It mentions that the prisoners have been convicted of terrorist attacks including kidnappings, assassinations, and suicide bombings.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Hamid Karzai moved quickly on Sunday to confirm Parliament's decision to dismiss two senior security ministers the day before, but he reassured the Western allies that he would avoid a vacuum in the two ministries charged with fighting the war and organizing the transition to Afghan control. In a statement, Mr. Karzai said he had requested that both of the men who were dismissed, Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak and Interior Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, stay on until replacements could be found. Describing them as ''true sons of Afghanistan,'' he said that they would be decorated for their service and would remain in the government in different jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Afghan president released a sweeping set of proposed reforms late Thursday, including a number aimed at stemming the government's endemic corruption; the proposals touched every ministry, the attorney general's office and the Supreme Court. The document, which the president's spokesman Aimal Faizi described in a Twitter message as a ''decree on administrative reforms,'' is similar to an executive order and in theory must be complied with by all organs of government. However, Parliament can review it, and many of the provisions are vague, leaving unclear the timetable for compliance and how some of the measures would be financed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- For Afghan mining officials and their Western advisers, revamping the Afghan laws that cover mining and oil drilling looked like an easy sell with a big payoff: new rules would give foreign investors certainty and, in the process, begin transforming Afghanistan from a ward of the international community into a state that could better pay its own way. Instead, the new laws are now in limbo after a group of Afghan cabinet ministers and senior officials last week objected to the draft legislation as kowtowing to foreign mining interests eager to hijack Afghanistan's natural resources. ''A balance has to be struck so we can make sure that our patrimony does not become a pot of porridge for others,'' said Ashraf Ghani, a senior adviser to President Hamid Karzai. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan issued an impassioned call for the end of international airstrikes in his country on Tuesday, branding them as an ''illegitimate use of force'' and saying that the need to protect civilian life demanded a complete halt to those operations, even in cases when troops are under attack. Hours later, the allied commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen, reiterated significant changes to rules concerning the use of airstrikes announced earlier this week, issuing a statement in which he said he had given the order that ''no aerial munitions be delivered against civilian dwellings.'' But he added the caveat that the strikes would be permitted as an absolute last resort in self-defense ''if no other options are available.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Twenty-one criminal indictments in the huge Kabul Bank fraud case have been sent to a special tribunal at the urging of President Hamid Karzai, including that of the bank's chairman and chief executive, Afghan officials said this weekend. In a separate case, Mr. Karzai called for the disarming of a unit of the American-backed Afghan Local Police, whose members are accused in the rape and abuse of an 18-year-old woman in the northern province of Kunduz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- Acting at the behest of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, senior American officials told a California congressman last weekend that he was not welcome in Afghanistan because of concerns that his sharp criticism of Mr. Karzai would undermine Washington's efforts to rebuild trust with the government and restart preliminary peace talks with the Taliban. The congressman, Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican, has made little secret of his desire to alter the Obama administration's policies there radically. He has joined Afghan opposition leaders and former warlords in calling for a revamp of the Afghan government into a decentralized, federal state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- In a sweeping speech on Tuesday that touched on some of the heroes of Afghanistan's past 150 years, President Hamid Karzai laid out a vision of a modern, independent Afghanistan that could outlast security upheaval and foreign entanglement. And he made an emotional defense of his outreach to the Taliban, urging the insurgents again to lay down their weapons, if only to hasten the withdrawal of American forces. Speaking at an event to celebrate the time of King Amanullah, a reformist ruler in the 1920s, Mr. Karzai appeared to be trying to set himself up as a similar leader who is intent on guiding his country to independence from foreign domination, be it Britain in the past, or the United States today, and as part of a leadership tradition that embraced education and modernization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- Western military and intelligence officials acknowledged on Monday that they were surprised by the scale and sophistication of the synchronized attacks in Afghanistan on Sunday, seeing it as a troubling step in the evolution of the HaqqaniTaliban network from a crime mob to a leading militant force. Even as the Western officials praised the Afghan security forces' response and sought to play down the attacks' strategic impact, they privately agreed with the criticism by President Hamid Karzai on Monday. He said the assaults -- involving dozens of attackers who crossed hundreds of miles to strike at seven different secured targets, all around 1:45 p.m. on Sunday -- represented an ''intelligence failure for us, and especially NATO.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Hamid Karzai said Wednesday in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that his representatives had begun talks with the Taliban and the American government, a potentially significant development suggesting that the Taliban were dropping longstanding objections to face-to-face discussions with the Afghan government. A member of the Afghan High Peace Council also described the recent Afghan government contacts to The New York Times this week and said that there had been an agreement with Taliban representatives to go ahead with peace talks in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar, but there was no date yet for meetings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Seven children and a young adult were killed in a NATO airstrike last week as they grazed their sheep and goats in a snowy area of eastern Afghanistan, according to Afghan government officials who announced the findings of their investigation into the strike on Monday. The strike occurred after a dawn clearing operation by NATO troops in a nearby village on Feb. 8, said Mohammed Tahir Safi, an adviser to President Hamid Karzai, who led the committee that investigated the civilian casualties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Hamid Karzai has taken steps to disband a little-known, irregular police force financed by the American military with members in at least four northern provinces. Some members of the force are former militiamen and thugs known as much for extorting money from ordinary citizens as for intimidating insurgents and upholding the law. The decision appeared aimed at stopping at least some of the militias that are beyond the control of Mr. Karzai's administration and could one day challenge the government. It also appeared to be an effort to constrain the independence of northern Afghanistan, where strongmen and power brokers, especially the governor of Balkh Province, have often seemed to operate with only nominal deference to the central government in Kabul. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Despite criticism from neighboring countries, threats from the Taliban and calls for a boycott from some political opponents, President Hamid Karzai has called a loya jirga, the traditional grand council of Afghan elders and leaders, in an attempt to gain popular support for a long-term partnership with the United States, Afghan officials and analysts say. Even before the jirga's opening, set for Wednesday, it is being clouded by doubt and confusion -- much of it sown by Mr. Karzai himself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Hamid Karzai's plan to disband private security companies that protect billions of dollars worth of aid projects and replace them with government forces is fraught with problems and unlikely to meet the president's March deadline to complete the transition, according to a six-month assessment of the program. The assessment, conducted by NATO and the Afghan Interior Ministry, outlines dozens of issues that have slowed the development of the new security force and raises questions about the government's capacity to carry out and sustain the program and others as international aid and military support dwindle in coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Hamid Karzai has invited retired Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who led NATO troops here in 2009 and 2010, to Afghanistan, and General McChrystal plans to make the visit in the next few weeks, Afghan and American officials said. The general has not been in Afghanistan since he resigned his command in June 2010 after an embarrassing article in Rolling Stone magazine quoted members of his staff saying disparaging things about the Obama administration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghanistan's management of its banking system has improved enough that the International Monetary Fund is ready to renew its credit program with the country, the fund said in a statement on Thursday. The fund announced that it had reached an agreement with the Afghan government to renew its program for three years, giving the country's financial standing a much-needed boost and ending a long period of uncertainty for international donors and the Afghan government about whether an array of small development projects and salary support programs would be able to proceed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Fuming over what they have called the Pakistani role in exporting terrorism across the border, Afghan officials signaled on Tuesday that they had little interest, for now, in healing a rift with Pakistan, their eastern neighbor. Two developments set the tone: In New Delhi, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan signed a wide-ranging strategic partnership with India, which Pakistan regards as its principal adversary. Mr. Karzai's visit also underscored the growing economic and security ties between India and Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- In the two weeks since the leader of Afghanistan's peace process was assassinated, an intense power struggle has opened among the nation's ethnic groups -- and within them -- as well as among other powerful factions here, laying bare a crisis that is buffeting President Hamid Karzai from every side. Though the peace process had made little headway, the figure at the head of the High Council for Peace, Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president, had given the body stature. He had also protected Mr. Karzai from the rival camps within his government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- In his first public appearance since rushing back to Afghanistan after the assassination of the country's leading peace broker, a solemn President Hamid Karzai said Thursday that the Taliban had gained access to their target by wooing senior leaders with an audio CD suggesting that peace was within reach. Mr. Karzai's statement and an account from a former Taliban member who helped bring the bomber to the peace broker, Burhanuddin Rabbani, the former Afghan president who led the country's High Peace Council, painted a picture of a dark and complex plot that unfolded over four months to enable the assassin to move in on his target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- In a startling reversal on Wednesday, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan annulled a special court that he had set up to review the results of the 2010 parliamentary elections. The decision, which came after months of pressure from Western diplomats, reaffirms the authority of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission, which finalized the results of the election last November only to have its authority undermined by the creation of the special court. It was also an acknowledgment that Mr. Karzai's effort to change the makeup of the new parliament through the court was hurting his administration more than helping it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KARZ, Afghanistan -- The marble grave of the Afghan president's half brother, assassinated two weeks ago by one of his own men, lies in this scruffy village that is near Kandahar and bears the family name. The white stone has a quiet to it that stands in stark contrast to the din he left behind. Ahmed Wali Karzai's killing put the region's spoils up for grabs, and the tribal elite of Kandahar are watching, waiting, and above all, calculating their next move. They all want a piece of the future, and among them are strong men with guns. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Afghan government officially took control of security in the capital of Helmand Province on Wednesday as part of a sweeping effort to begin to disentangle Western forces from the country. Highlighting the risk to Afghan civilians as the transition got under way, however, insurgents struck in one of the provincial capitals that is scheduled to be handed over later this week. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A suicide bomber detonated explosives hidden under his turban on Thursday after entering a mosque here where hundreds of people had gathered to pay respects to President Hamid Karzai's half brother, who was assassinated on Tuesday. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- At midday, the glare and dust obscures Afghanistan's horizon in what seems a metaphor for the position of the Afghan president as political and economic crises mount on every front: it is increasingly hard to see how he will find his way. The death of President Hamid Karzai's half brother, who was shot by a police commander on Tuesday, was only the latest in a series of blows to the stability of the government as the United States and Afghanistan's other international backers have made it clear they want to reduce their commitments here. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Members of the Afghan Parliament came to blows Tuesday as a majority for the first time began to discuss impeaching President Hamid Karzai, signaling the near-total breakdown of relations between the Parliament and the president as the country teeters on the brink of a constitutional crisis. The dispute centers on the legality of a special court set up by President Karzai to adjudicate allegations of fraud by candidates who lost their seats or were disqualified in last September's parliamentary elections. Two weeks ago the special court ruled that 62 members of the current Parliament should be replaced by those who brought challenges, many of whom are allies of the president. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Citing fear of reprisals and political interference in his investigation of the largest financial scandal in the country, the governor of Afghanistan's Central Bank announced his resignation Monday while in the United States, saying that he no longer felt safe in Afghanistan. The banker, Abdul Qadeer Fitrat, made his resignation public in telephone interviews with Afghan radio stations and in a pointed resignation letter, which was e-mailed to reporters. He has been under near constant criticism and the threat of legal action from the attorney general, who is appointed by President Hamid Karzai, since he began to speak out publicly about the fraud at the Kabul Bank, the nation's largest private bank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Many in Kabul are welcoming the announcement of the United States troop withdrawal, but in southern Afghanistan, in the pomegranate orchards and deserts that are the war's front lines, the mood is far more sober: Local officials and tribal elders are questioning the ability of Afghan troops to defend them and say the Taliban are far from defeated. President Hamid Karzai, who spoke to reporters on Thursday in his heavily guarded palace in the capital, Kabul, set the tone for senior government figures with words that sounded almost heady with excitement. He described the announcement that American troops would depart as ''a moment of happiness for Afghanistan.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The United Nations announced Saturday that May was the deadliest month for Afghan civilians since it began keeping count in 2007 -- most likely a reflection of intense fighting, as militants seek to show they can stand up to the surge in American forces and try to undermine the government of President Hamid Karzai as it prepares to start taking over security. Although the monthly record of 368 deaths is compared with 2007, it is effectively the highest number since the war began, because civilian casualties appear to have been far lower before then. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Afghan government escalated its criticism of Pakistan on Wednesday, publicly questioning for the first time how the Pakistanis could ensure the security of their nuclear arms if they did not even know that Osama bin Laden, the world's most wanted terrorist, had been hiding in a compound in a Pakistani military town less than an hour from their capital. In comments at a weekly news conference, Gen. Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, echoed points made this week by others in the country, including President Hamid Karzai, but in starker terms. The general specifically criticized Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, which has claimed that it was unaware that Bin Laden had been living for years in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, where American commandos killed him in a raid early Monday. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Across Afghanistan, people seemed torn over what Osama bin Laden's death meant. As the public face of Al Qaeda, he had brought war and its many horrors to the country, as President Hamid Karzai noted in an address Monday morning. But to some, his death at the hands of Americans boiled down to this: a religious Muslim had been killed by infidels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A cousin of Afghanistan's president was killed Wednesday during a night raid by NATO and Afghan forces in which they detained the man's son as a suspected Taliban commander, as well as at least two of the family's bodyguards. The case brought the delicate issue of civilian casualties into the presidential palace and added to the already tense relationship between the Afghans and the Americans. It also raised questions about whether a member of the extended family of President Hamid Karzai might have Taliban ties, or whether bad intelligence led to a deadly raid on the home of an innocent family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Monday that the United States was ''well positioned'' to begin withdrawing some American troops from Afghanistan in July, but he said that a substantial force would remain and that the United States was starting talks with the Afghans about keeping a security presence in the country beyond 2014. At a joint news conference in the Afghan capital with President Hamid Karzai, Mr. Gates said that no decisions had been made about the number of troops to go home. His remarks were tempered with enough caveats, however, to suggest that the July drawdown promised by President Obama could be minor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The American commander in Afghanistan apologized in person to the leadership of the Afghan government on Sunday for the mistaken killing of nine Afghan children in Kunar Province on Tuesday, but the Afghan president rejected the apology, according to a statement from the president's spokesman. Gen. David H. Petraeus attended the Afghan National Security Council meeting held Sunday. He explained that the shooting of the boys, who were 9 to 15 years old, was a mistake and apologized to the Afghan people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Friday against one of the largest money exchange houses in Afghanistan, along with 15 of its executives, on charges that it used billions of dollars transferred in and out of the country to help hide proceeds from illegal drug sales. The authorities designated the New Ansari Money Exchange a ''major money-laundering vehicle,'' under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, saying that the exchange used its subsidiaries in Dubai to funnel drug money out of Kabul and into American and other international financial institutions. They also imposed sanctions on New Ansari's senior managers, including some who have ties to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- As the long luncheon for newly elected Afghan members of Parliament wound to a close over tea and fruit last weekend, it became clear that President Hamid Karzai was outnumbered and outmaneuvered. When he stood to speak, the lawmakers listened politely, but did not budge. They wanted him to inaugurate the Parliament the very next day. Not even the usually loyal Pashtuns at the gathering, who are from the president's own ethnic group, agreed with his decision, announced days earlier, to delay the body's opening for a month. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- In a victory for lawmakers, President Hamid Karzai inaugurated the National Assembly on Wednesday, ending months of delays but only partly settling the controversy and recriminations over the September parliamentary elections, which were fraught with charges of widespread fraud. With the swearing in of the 249 members of the lower house, Afghanistan once again has three working branches of government. It also means that for the first time since the elections, the president has a check on his power -- albeit a limited one since Afghanistan's Constitution and political system favor the executive branch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Hamid Karzai backed down on Saturday from his plan to put off the inauguration of a new Parliament by another month, agreeing to convene it this week after intense pressure from legislators and the international community. Angered by the president's repeated delays in their inauguration, the newly elected members of Parliament insisted that they would convene themselves on Sunday if he did not. The showdown could have caused a constitutional crisis, as only the president has the legal power to inaugurate Parliament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]