U.S. President Barack Obama has welcomed a request from Afghanistan to take part in an inter-agency review of U.S. policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Afghan president and the U.S. regional envoy said on Sunday, Reuters reported.
The review, ordered by Obama last week, will look at both military and non-military aspects of U.S. policy as American and NATO troops struggle in Afghanistan against a growing Taliban insurgency that also threatens Pakistan.
The review is to be completed before a NATO summit in April.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he was "very very thankful that President Obama has accepted the proposal of Afghanistan joining a strategic review of the war against terrorism."
An Afghan delegation headed by the foreign minister will travel to Washington to give its input to the review, Karzai told reporters at an event attended by Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Holbrooke is visiting the Afghan capital after a four-day trip to neighbouring Pakistan. He said Obama welcomed Karzai's suggestion to participate in the review, which came after a similar request from Pakistan last week.
The envoy has made few public comments during his trip which will end in India, but said the visit to Kabul was "to reaffirm America's commitment to the effort in Afghanistan against the Taliban and al Qaeda."
"We've come here to listen," Holbrooke said.
Obama has pledged to make Afghanistan a foreign policy priority and either Holbrooke or one of his deputies would visit Kabul at least once a month, the envoy said.
The new U.S. administration is considering sending up to 25,000 more troops to Afghanistan, but also increasing spending on development assistance to undercut the insurgency now entrenched in the south and east and spreading north and west.
But as the war effort has faltered, so too have relations between the United States and Karzai, once the darling of the Bush administration.