US Sec of State and presidential candidates give joint news conference

Описание: (12 Jul 2014) Afghanistan's two rival candidates reached a breakthrough agreement on Saturday to a complete audit of their contested presidential election and, whoever the victor, form a national unity government.
The deal, brokered by US Secretary of State John Kerry, offers a path out of what threatened to be a debilitating political crisis for Afghanistan, with both candidates claiming victory and talking of setting up competing governments.
Such a scenario could have dangerously split the fragile country's government and security forces at a time the US is pulling out most of its troops and the Taliban continues to wage a fierce insurgency.
Instead, former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah consented to abide by a 100 per cent, internationally supervised audit of all 8 million ballots in the presidential election and form a national unity government once the results are announced.
"With respect to national unity both candidates have agreed to abide by the results of the audit and that the winner of the election will serve as president and will immediately form a government of national unity," said Kerry after two days of negotiations.
The audit is expected to take a "number of weeks" and would begin with the ballot boxes in Kabul.
Ballot boxes from the provinces are to be flown to the capital by helicopter by US and international forces and examined on rolling basis.
Representatives from each campaign as well as international observers will help oversee the review, and the candidate with the most votes would be declared the winner and become president.
Both candidates agreed to respect the result, and the winner would immediately form a national unity government.
The inauguration, which had been scheduled for August 2, would be postponed.

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