For Kerry, a diplomatic triumph

Hours after he landed in Kabul on Friday, the Massachusetts Democrat was called upon by the US ambassador to negotiate with Karzai, a request that triggered a marathon of detailed meetings - over tea, over dinner, and in private strolls on grounds of the presidential palace.

Yesterday, Kerry stood beside Karzai as the Afghan president announced that he had agreed to a runoff election Nov. 7. It is meant to diminish the taint of fraud on Karzai’s reelection that has thrown doubt on the legitimacy of Afghanistan’s government, and greatly complicated President Obama’s deliberations on the war. Kerry is due to meet Obama today at the White House to report on the runoff agreement, which could ease the way politically if the president decides to increase troop levels.

In a telephone interview from Dubai, where his flight home had a layover yesterday, Kerry praised Karzai’s willingness to accept a runoff, even though the Afghan leader ultimately disagreed with the methodology used by a UN-backed panel to throw out more than a million votes in his favor.

“We began a conversation that took about five days,’’ Kerry said. “It was passionate and complicated, but when things looked like they were going to fall apart and break apart, and we came up with a new concept, [Karzai] was open to it.’’

Kerry’s successful talks, which ranged from broad issues of legitimacy to discussions of the statistical analysis used to disqualify ballots, appeared to be his most significant accomplishment since taking over the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this year, replacing Joe Biden.

“We may have just averted a crisis of government in Afghanistan. This may be the biggest thing that Kerry has done, other than run for president,’’ said Ralph G. Carter a professor at Texas Christian University who co-authored a book on the history of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Deborah DeMoss Fonseca, a former senior aide to Senator Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican who famously wielded his clout as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that Kerry is beginning to do the same.

“He was quiet after he lost the presidential race, but he is coming out of it now,’’ she said.

Kerry was thrust into the role of a negotiator hours after he landed in Kabul, as he dined with Massachusetts soldiers in a military cafeteria at Camp Phoenix. The US ambassador, Karl W. Eikenberry, asked him to go visit Karzai, who was believed to be on the verge of denouncing a UN-backed panel that had concluded that about a third of Karzai’s votes should be thrown out because of evidence of fraud, dropping him below the 50 percent mark needed to win outright.

Kerry drove to the presidential palace on Friday night, meeting for several hours with Afghan officials, including a one-on-one meeting with Karzai. Kerry, who hosted Karzai at the US Senate earlier this year, said he was treated with great hospitality, joking that he must have been served “a thousand cups of tea.’’

Although press accounts have been full of reports of US officials pushing Karzai to establish a unity government with his rival, Abdullah Abdullah, Kerry said yesterday that he had no discussions on that issue.

“Both Karzai and Abdullah indicated that they are prepared to talk to each other and think about what the future is,’’ Kerry said. “But I did not have any conversations about a coalition. It was not my job. It was not an American role.’’

Instead, Kerry spent most of his energy trying to dispel months of acrimony. After fraud allegations following the Aug. 20 election, some US and UN officials alleged that Karzai’s supporters had stuffed ballot boxes, making his victory illegitimate, while Karzai believed foreign forces were trying to steal his election victory by coming up with questionable reasons to throw out 1.3 million Karzai votes.

“There were certainly conspiracy theories in the air, and they needed to be addressed,’’ said Kerry. The former presidential nominee, who knows the anxieties of running for president, added: “I know he was under enormous pressure.’’

Discussions dragged on so late Friday night that Kerry decided to cancel his trip the next day to the Afghan city of Jalalabad. Instead, he attended a flurry of meetings with Abdullah, Karzai’s rival, Kai Eide, the top UN official in Afghanistan, the British and French ambassadors, and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who saw a runoff as the best way to resolve the crisis, according to several European diplomats after the talks.

Later Saturday, Kerry returned to the palace with Eikenberry to hear Karzai’s complaints about the complex criteria that were being used to deem ballots fraudulent. That turned into dinner and a five-hour discussion with members of the UN-backed election complaints panel explaining their process of discounting ballots. Members of Afghanistan’s election commission were also there, arguing that many of the disputed ballots were genuine.

At the end of the night, Kerry met with Karzai alone, and talked about what the election meant for Afghanistan and the world.

“I made all of the arguments about things that I believe were true: the stakes, the impact globally, the legitimacy of the government going forward, his own place on the stage and how he would lead,’’ Kerry said.

On Sunday, Kerry flew to meet US Marines in Kandahar, but returned to Kabul to have dinner and more meetings with Karzai. The number of contested ballot boxes had shrunk to 43 out of 313 boxes audited.

Kerry traveled to Pakistan on Monday morning to meet with top US and Pakistani officials, but returned to Kabul for yet another round of meetings that afternoon.

By Monday night, Karzai had agreed to accept a runoff election, but it was still unclear if he would go through with it. Yesterday morning, Karzai met with Pashtun tribal leaders who were furious about foreign interference in the election, according to a senior UN official who asked not to be quoted. The official said Karzai told them: “The foreigners have interfered in the process, but we will call their bluff and beat Abdullah in a second round.’’

Still, as the noon press conference where Karzai was to announce a new round was delayed by four hours, frantic e-mails bounced among Kabul, the UN headquarters in New York, and Washington, unsure of what would happen next.

Kerry took a long walk alone with Karzai around the palace grounds to a mosque where Karzai goes to find solitude. Shortly afterward, the two walked up to the podium at the press conference, along with Eide. Karzai made clear that he didn’t think he lost the election, but wanted the results to be viewed as legitimate by the world.