US President Barack Obama acknowledged Saturday that he sometimes has "blunt" conversations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who stunned Washington by criticising military operations. Obama told reporters after a Nato summit in Lisbon that foreign troops "should be sensitive" to Karzai's concerns, but "at the same time he's got to be sensitive about the security of our personnel."
The two leaders hold videoconference talks once every six weeks, Obama said. "Sometimes that conversation is very blunt. There are going to be some strong disagreements. Sometimes real tensions," the US leader said. Karzai said earlier that he had won understanding from Nato-led allies a week after slamming US-led military tactics including night raids on Afghan homes. The Afghan president had surprised allies with an interview to the Washington Post warning US-led forces must scale back their presence and reduce night raids or risk fuelling the Taliban insurgency.
Flanked by Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the Afghan leader said he had raised the matter in Lisbon talks with leaders of the 48 countries that make up the Nato-led force. "I was happy to see that there was an understanding of the Afghan demands on the issues of consent to Afghan people," he told a news conference after signing an agreement that maps an exit strategy for the allies.
"I found an environment in which Afganistan's difficulties and Afghanistan's conditions - the reality on the ground in other words - was substantially understood and agreed upon by our partners," he added. "I hope that as we move forward that many of these difficulties will go away and that then our movement to the future will be one without the difficulties that we are encountering."