Mr Karzai wants the US to keep putting pressure on Pakistan
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has criticised US plans to begin withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan in July 2011.
Mr Karzai said that giving a date for the withdrawal had given the Taliban insurgency “a morale boost”.
He also said the war could not be won as long as the Taliban could take refuge in Pakistan.
The US has sent an extra 30,000 troops to Afghanistan since December 2009 in an effort to defeat the Taliban.
The comments were made by Mr Karzai at a meeting in Kabul with a group of visiting US members of Congress, and repeated in a statement from his office.
In the statement, Mr Karzai said progress had been made in rebuilding the country after decades of war, but that Afghan civilian casualties caused by Nato military operations were hampering progress in the war on terrorism.
“”(Mr Karzai) seemed pretty pumped up, very determined and energetic and optimistic, which was not the way I thought we’d find him”
Bob Inglis US Congressman
He also criticised a lack of focus on “destroying the terrorists’ refuge” across the border in Pakistan.
The Afghan government has repeatedly demanded that the US take tougher action against Pakistan.
US Republican Congressman Bob Inglis, who was at the meeting with Mr Karzai, said the president asked for more help in stopping attacks from across the border with Pakistan.
“He seemed pretty pumped up, very determined and energetic and optimistic, which was not the way I thought we’d find him,” Mr Inglis told the Associated Press news agency.
Correspondents say relations between Mr Obama and Mr Karzai have rarely been easy – particularly after Mr Karzai was re-elected last year in an election widely condemned as corrupt by Western observers.
Mr Karzai has been increasingly outspoken in his criticism of Western powers.
Last month, secret US documents released by the Wikileaks website showed US concern that Pakistan’s intelligence agency was supporting the Taliban in its war in Afghanistan.
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