Afghan troops pullout:

No final exit date

US: Afghanistan is stabilizing more slowly than expected, the Chief US envoy for the region said Tuesday, but that is unlikely to keep President Barack Obama from beginning to withdraw combat troops next year.

Richard Holbrooke, the US special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said “the only conceivable thing to me is that the president will do what he said he would do” and begin withdrawals in a “careful, responsible manner.”

“The President was talking about combat troops and a conditions-based drawdown policy,” Holbrooke told the Reuters Washington Summit from New York.

“He did not set a final exit date and he made clear ... that there would be continued economic and development assistance and continued support for the training, equipping and financial support of the army and the police.”

Holbrooke, a troubleshooter who began his career in Vietnam and later helped hammer out the Bosnia peace accords, was in New York for the UN General Assembly after visiting the scene of disastrous Pakistan flooding and just days after elections in Afghanistan.

With Taliban militants trying to disrupt the election, Saturday’s vote in Afghanistan and the eventual declaration of the winners is a test of the Karzai government’s stability after last year’s fraud-riddled presidential election.

It is also being closely watched before Obama’s war strategy review in December, which is likely to determine the pace and scale of US troop withdrawals.

Some 3.6 million Afghans voted despite violence that killed at least 17 people. Nearly 3,000 formal complaints of fraud, intimidation and other issues had been lodged by Tuesday. Foreign observers said the violence was not as heavy as last year but it was too early to say whether the election was a success.

New York, Wednesday, Reuters