US Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday he was confident Washington would reach an agreement with Kabul that would allow American troops to remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014

US Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday he was confident Washington would reach an agreement with Kabul that would allow American troops to remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014.
  
"We're making progress, we're working on it. I am personally confident that we will have an agreement," Kerry told reporters after talks with the Pakistani government in Islamabad. "I feel very comfortable where we are and, as I say to you, I expect this agreement to be completed in an appropriate time," he told a news conference.
  
Afghan President Hamid Karzai suspended talks on the agreement in June.
  
The deal would allow for a limited US military presence to remain in Afghanistan after the US-led NATO mission finishes at the end of next year.

"The president has made it clear that he will at the appropriate time be announcing an ongoing American presence and the negotiations on a bilateral security agreement are underway," Kerry told reporters in Islamabad.

Kerry also invited Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for talks with President Barack Obama. "To ensure that we continue our important bilateral conversation at the highest levels I have extended on behalf of the president of the United States an invitation to Prime Minister Sharif to meet with the president at a bilateral meeting with him in the United States this fall," Kerry said.

"I can tell you unequivocally that we do share a long-term vision of the relationship and I believe that in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif we have someone who's committed to try to grow that relationship," Kerry told reporters.

Washington is determined to move the relationship with Pakistan to a full partnership and find ways to deal with "individual issues that have been irritants over the last years", Kerry said, adding that Obama was looking forward to meeting Sharif "in a month or so in the US".