Afghan President Hamid Karzai has arrived in Washington for talks with President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Karzai is traveling with twelve cabinet ministers and several other high-ranking officials. The trip comes just weeks after Karzai threatened to join the Taliban if foreign interference in his government continued. One item up for discussion is Karzai’s plan to hold a peace jirga later this month to reach out to low- and mid-level members of the Taliban to join his government. On Monday, US ambassador to Afghanistan Gen. Karl Eikenberry said he believed Karzai’s visit would strengthen US-Afghan relations.

Karl Eikenberry: “President Obama has expressed his confidence in President Karzai and our work together. As you know, every relationship, every bilateral relationship, especially ones as close as we have with Afghanistan, they experience ups and downs. But what measures true partnership is the ability, when the stakes are as high as they are for Afghanistan and the United States of America, to be able to work our way through difficulties and come back together and still find ourselves well aligned.”