White House spokesman Josh Earnest told a September 26 press briefing the United States expects Afghanistan's president-elect will sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) after he is inaugurated next week.
Josh Earnest said Ashraf Ghani will take the oath of president on September 29 "and we would anticipate that he would sign the Bilateral Security Agreement [BSA] promptly after that."
Outgoing Afghan President Hamid Karzai refused to sign the BSA, prompting warnings from the United States and NATO that they could pull all their troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014 if Karzai's successor would not sign the document.
The agreement provides the legal basis for the United States and its foreign allies to keep some troops in Afghanistan after the end of this year.
Earnest said that the BSA is "clearly in the interests of the Afghan people."