WASHINGTON - The United States would be receptive to a power-sharing arrangement between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his election challenger if they agreed to it, Obama administration officials said Wednesday.
Karzai and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah have settled on a Nov. 7 runoff following weeks of acrimony over Afghanistan's fraud-ridden national election. But both sides also are considering a coalition government that could either replace the runoff or follow it.
A State Department official said the U.S. would not be opposed to a power-sharing deal, depending on its legitimacy and how it was implemented. And President Barack Obama appeared to allude to the still-fluid discussions Wednesday.
"I think we're still in -- finding out how this whole process in Afghanistan is going to unfold," Obama said in an interview on MSNBC television.
One senior defence official said that a power-sharing deal at this point had equal odds of coming together or falling apart.
The administration is stressing that any such agreement is up to the Afghan government and the U.S. is not involved in any effort to forge or encourage it.
The U.S. wants a government that is legitimate in the eyes of Afghans and the international community, officials say, and at present that legitimacy appears clearest through the Afghan Constitution's requirement for a run-off vote.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to describe confidential discussions between the two governments.
"We don't have any view really on a power-sharing arrangement," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters on Wednesday. "It would depend on the manner in which it was presented and carried out."
Officials also said Wednesday that Obama's pending decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan figured in the U.S. discussions with Karzai about how to resolve the political impasse.
Several officials stressed that the looming troop plan decision was not used overtly to force Karzai to concede on the election's contested first round, but one highly placed U.S. official in Afghanistan said the United States used Obama's deliberation over troop numbers as leverage.
That official spoke on condition of anonymity because Obama has not announced whether he will agree to a U.S. military request for thousands of additional forces.
Karzai and Abdullah have largely dismissed the idea of sharing power, but there have been reports of private horsetrading discussions before and since Tuesday's announcement that the country would hold a runoff election on Nov. 7.
The most important near-term goal for the U.S. was Karzai's acceptance of election commission results and his recognition that the impasse must be resolved, the defence official said.
The outcome has been in doubt since an August election badly marred by fraud. The United Nations says much of the vote-rigging and phantom balloting was done on Karzai's behalf.
Sen. John Kerry, a Democrat, met repeatedly with Karzai leading up to Tuesday's announcement that a runoff would be held. Kerry gave Obama his accounting at the White House on Wednesday, and afterward told reporters that in Afghanistan he "did not discuss nor did I even attempt to put on the table the concept of a coalition."
It would be inappropriate to raise that possibility and would make it seem to Afghans that the United States was calling the shots, Kerry said. "We want to avoid that, always."
However, he acknowledged the issue was being discussed in Kabul, and said there may have been talks between the Karzai and Abdullah camps on it "even today."
Obama is mulling how to shift strategy in the 8-year-old Afghanistan war, and the election mess in Afghanistan has played a big role in his intensive, weeks-long discussions with his war council.
"What we've said is that it is important to make sure that we understand the landscape and the partner that we're going to be dealing with," Obama told MSNBC. "Because our strategy in Afghanistan is not just dependent on military -- forces. It's also dependent on how well we're doing with our civilian development efforts, how well we're doing in stemming corruption. So, this is part of a comprehensive strategy, it always has been. And our basic attitude is that we are going to take the time to get this right."
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the decision about troops could come before the Nov. 7 runoff date.
"I don't know when the decision is going to be, so it's certainly possible," Gibbs said.
In his own interview, Obama added that even if the new strategy is formulated before the runoff "we may not announce it."
The White House has been saying that Obama's decision on troops is still weeks away. Obama leaves Nov. 11 for a long trip to Asia, and it has been expected he would make a decision before then.
A State Department official said Abdullah's camp had expressed some interest in a coalition or power-sharing deal, and that some Karzai aides, concerned about the results of a runoff, are willing to consider the idea despite the president's public repudiation of the idea.
That official said the U.S. would support any course that leads to the formation of a credible government in the eyes of the Afghan people.
That could include a coalition or other power-sharing arrangement that is either formed to eliminate the need for a second round or one that is created using the results of the runoff.
But there are no provisions for a coalition in the Afghan Constitution, and it is not clear how such a deal would work or remain enforceable.
