In speech, Karzai, expresses satisfaction with outcome of Washington visit - Karen DeYoung

Among the achievements he will carry home, Karzai said at a United States Institute of Peace (USIP) presentation winding up his visit, was an administration pledge to transfer to Afghan control all detention centers operated by U.S. and NATO forces, beginning in January with the major U.S. prison at Bagram air base. The administration, he said, also reiterated its promise to continue to try its utmost to limit Afghan civilian casualties and voiced its support for the Afghan-led peace process he has proposed.

Most important, Karzai said, was a U.S. commitment to Afghanistan that will extend "beyond the military activity right now . . . into the future, long after we have retired, and perhaps into our grandsons' and great-grandsons' -- and great-granddaughters' -- generations."

"This is something the Afghan people have been seeking for a long, long time," he said. Before the visit, Karzai's government had expressed concern over President Obama's plans to begin withdrawing U.S. combat troops by July 2011.

"In short," Karzai said, "the trip was meaningful, substantive and had all the right tones and objectives."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who spoke alongside Karzai at the USIP event, concurred with that assessment. The two governments, she said, plan to negotiate a new, long-term strategic agreement by the end of the year, replacing the one signed by Karzai and President George W. Bush in 2005.

Among the challenges for the administration are concerns about Afghan governance, rule of law and corruption. Karzai and the cabinet ministers accompanying him promised to do better.

Later, Clinton and Karzai took a walk alone in the garden at Dumbarton Oaks.

"The president did not raise the issue of my brother in Kandahar," Karzai said of Obama. "I raised it with him, and to the satisfaction of both sides." Referring to U.S. appeals to remove his brother from power, Karzai said he was in no position to fire a democratically elected official. .... In speech, Karzai expresses satisfaction with outcome of visit

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