Afghanistan vows to redouble anti-graft drive: Kerry

U.S. Sen. John Kerry reads a statement after a meeting Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus April 1, 2010.

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai has vowed renewed efforts to combat corruption, a major bone of contention with Washington as its troops battle Taliban insurgents, U.S. Senator John Kerry said on Friday.

Corruption and governance in Afghanistan are being scrutinized in Washington as U.S. President Barack Obama plans a strategy review in December, a month after mid-term Congressional elections will be held and amid sagging support for the war.

Karzai, whose government faces parliamentary polls on September 18, has been trying to assert his independence from Western backers while also retaining their support.

"The president has guaranteed there will be action, there will be changes, there will be demonstrated activities over the course of the next weeks and months that can give confidence to people that there is movement, accountability and transparency in that process," Kerry told reporters after talks with Karzai.

The influential senator returned to Afghanistan on Thursday to see Karzai after holding talks with him earlier in the week before heading to Islamabad to meet Pakistani leaders.

"I was very heartened to hear the president and members of his government recommit themselves to significant efforts in the days ahead to guarantee the independent operation of their major crimes unit," Kerry said.

Kerry, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described the government's anti-corruption unit -- an apparent source of friction in recent weeks -- as a sovereign Afghan institution that would welcome outside expertise.

Obama pressured Karzai earlier this year to do more to root out corruption, which Washington says complicates efforts to win over the population to the effort by foreign and Afghan forces to fight a widening insurgency.

This week he issued a decree giving foreign security contractors four-months to close down, a timeline the Pentagon called "very aggressive" and challenging.

Foreign security companies, who have over 30,000 local guards on their books, are deeply unpopular in Afghanistan where they have a reputation for arrogance and even recklessness.

Karzai, sitting next to Kerry at his presidential palace in Kabul, said the timeframe was final.

"That decision is final and ... I hope the international partners would help," he said. Kerry did not refer directly to the issue and neither took questions afterwards.

Karzai also said Afghan bodies fighting corruption would be independent. "We understood the points of view on both sides that we should have a joint campaign against corruption," Karzai said, adding that all contracts involving international bodies as well as the government should be transparent.

(Editing by David Fox)