Baku – APA. The timeline for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan is expected to be high on the agenda during Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's first visit to Washington this week, APA reports.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani says his country and Washington have common interests at stake in the fight against extremism, describing how Afghans see the United States as "critical" to the country's future. "While tragedy brought us together, there are common interests that now can be articulated very clearly," Ghani said in comments broadcast Sunday on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS." "The threats that we are facing on a daily basis, were they, God forbid, to overwhelm us, will threaten the world at large."
Ghani, who arrived in the US on Sunday, is due to meet US President Barack Obama on Tuesday and will also hold meetings with Secretary of State John Kerry and Defence Secretary Ashton Carter during his four-day visit.
The US has about 9,800 US forces in Afghanistan to train and support the Afghan military, but the Obama administration plans to reduce that number to 5,600 by the end of the year and withdraw the rest by the end of 2016. A small number of troops will remain in the country to protect the US embassy.
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter told the Reuters news agency that Obama is "considering a number of options to reinforce our support for President Ghani's security strategy, including possible changes to the timeline for our drawdown of US troops".
There are 13,000 foreign soldiers still in Afghanistan, about 9,800 American troops and 3,000 from NATO.
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