MUNICH: The president of Afghanistan said Sunday he would announce the start of a process to transfer responsibility for security to Afghan forces from international forces on March 21. NATO agreed with President Hamid Karzai at a summit in November to begin the handover to Afghan forces this year with the aim of completing the transition by the end of 2014. The Western military alliance has said it hopes to launch the process, which is aimed at a gradual reduction of the 150,000 foreign troops in the country, next month. NATO has stressed that transition will be gradual, conducted district by district and province by province, and will depend on security conditions. Iran fuel for Afghanistan Iran said Sunday it has reached an agreement with Afghanistan to supply it with Iranian fuel and that it has started delivering the products to the neighbor's private sector. Oil Minister Masoud Mirkazemi said: “Afghanistan's private sector buys all its needed products from Iran,” the oil ministry news service Shana reported. “Oil products were already transited to Afghanistan and we hope from now on this country makes all its (fuel) purchases from Iran as there has been an agreement with Afghan officials,” Mirkazemi said. About one-third of Afghanistan's fuel needs, imported from Russia, Turkmenistan and Iraq, transit through Iran.
