President Hamid Karzai on Monday left for London where he was to hold talks with British officials and open an exhibition of Afghan artifacts, officials said, DPA reported.
During the three-day official visit, Karzai was scheduled to meet with British Prime Minister David Cameron and discuss security and reconstruction in Afghanistan as well as Britain's assistance, the statement from the presidential palace said.
In a meeting on Tuesday with senior British officials, including Defence Minister Liam Fox and Foreign Minister Alistair Burt, the Afghan delegation was to discuss the transfer of security from NATO-led troops to Afghan forces, slated to begin this summer.
The handover is due to be completed by the end of 2014, according to an decision by NATO and its allies last year. Britain has nearly 10,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of more than 140,000 coalition forces.
Karzai was also expected to open an exhibition titled Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World" in the British Museum in London, the statement said.
The display, which spans more than 3,000 years of Afghanistan history, will feature over 200 items belonging to National Museum of Afghanistan.
More than 70 per cent of Afghanistan's cultural objects were looted, damaged or destroyed during the civil war and Taliban rule in 1990s.
Several countries returned thousands of artefacts, often bought on the black market, to the museum in Kabul after the fall of Taliban regime.
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