NATO chief: "No rush for the exits" in Afghanistan

(AP) CHICAGO - The United States and NATO leaders insist the Afghanistan fighting coalition will remain whole despite France's plans to yank combat troops out early, but leaders wary of plummeting public support for the war are using an alliance summit Sunday to show they want to move quickly away from the front lines.

With a global economic crisis and waning public support for the war in the backdrop, world leaders were opening the NATO summit to tackle Afghanistan's post-conflict future — from funding for security forces to upcoming elections.

President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai were meeting Sunday on the sidelines of the summit. Their hour-long discussion was expected to focus on planning for Afghanistan's 2014 elections, as well as the prospect of a political settlement with the Taliban, a senior Obama administration official said.

Public opinion in Europe and the United States is solidly against the war, with a majority of Americans now saying it is unwinnable or not worth continuing.

Newly-elected French President Francois Hollande has said he will withdraw all French combat troops from Afghanistan by year's end — a full two years before the timeline agreed to by nations in the U.S.-led NATO coalition.

"There will be no rush for the exits," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. "Our goal, our strategy, our timetable remain unchanged."

Rasmussen said that new position does not indicate fresh cracks in the alliance. He suggested a deal will emerge for France to move into a noncombat role but continue to support the international mission.

Karzai has said repeatedly he will step down from power when his term ends in 2014, paving the way for new elections. NATO's scheduled end of the war was built around those plans, with foreign forces staying until the 2014 election but exiting the country by 2015.

Mr. Obama and Karzai will discuss ways to ensure that political rivals can compete fairly in the run-up to the election, as well as ways to reduce fraud and support the winner who emerges, the official said.

Past Afghan elections were riddled with irregularities, and the U.S. applied heavy pressure to Karzai to schedule a second round of voting during the last presidential contest in 2009. The runoff was never held because Karzai's challenger pulled out in protest of what he claimed was an impossible level of corruption.

The election chapter opened a rift between the U.S. and Karzai, who suspected that the Obama administration wanted to replace him.

The Obama administration has mostly repaired its relationship with Karzai, but mistrust remains on both sides.

The U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, said Mr. Obama and Karzai also plan a lengthy discussion of prospects for a political settlement or peace pact between Karzai's government and the Taliban-led insurgency. The Taliban pulled out of U.S.-led talks in March, but separate talks among Afghan and other contacts continue, the U.S. official said.

The official said President Obama would press his view that political reconciliation is essential to the country's future security.

The Taliban is urging nations fighting in Afghanistan to follow France's lead and pull their international forces from the war this year.

"We call upon all the other NATO member countries to avoid working for the political interests of American officials and answer the call of your own people by immediately removing all your troops from Afghanistan," the group said in a statement emailed to reporters ahead of the summit opening.

The insurgent group noted declining public support for the war in the West and said political leaders should listen to their constituents and get out of Afghanistan.

The national security-focused NATO summit caps an extraordinary weekend of international summitry. Mr. Obama and the leaders of the world's leading industrial nations convened at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, for two days of talks focused in large part on Europe's economic crisis.

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Both the G-8 and NATO summits were originally scheduled to be held in Chicago, but the White House abruptly announced this spring that the G-8 would be moved to Camp David. Officials said the move was aimed at facilitating a more intimate discussion among the leaders at the smaller summit.

Joining President Obama and many of the G-8 leaders in Chicago are the heads of NATO alliance nations and other countries with a stake in the Afghan war.

Prominent among those nations is Pakistan. Tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan have been running high following several incidents, including the U.S. raid in Pakistan that led to the death of Osama bin Laden and a U.S. airstrike that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers.

Both countries have been seeking to restore normal relations. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari's acceptance of an invitation to attend the NATO summit was seen as an indication that his country would reopen key roads used to supply NATO fighting forces in Afghanistan, a key U.S. demand.

White House officials said that while they believe an agreement on reopening the supply routes will be reached, they do not expect that to happen during the NATO meetings. The two nations are haggling over how much Pakistan will be paid to allow the heavy transport truck to pass through. A senior U.S. official said the two sides are far apart. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

Officials have indicated that Mr. Obama and Zardari will not hold a separate bilateral meeting until the matter is resolved. Although miffed, Zardari is expected to see Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other U.S. officials in Chicago.

"I do hope that we will see a reopening of the transit routes in the very near future," Rasmussen said. "These negotiations will continue, but I am hopeful that they will be concluded in a positive manner."