Kerry: Decide troop levels after election

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. John Kerry said Wednesday he'd advise President Obama to wait until after the Afghan presidential runoff before deciding about troop levels there.

"I think you really want to know that this (the runoff election) has worked, and you want to know what kind of government is coming out of it," Kerry told reporters after he met with the president in Washington. "(That's) why this is a very important period of time. And I would absolutely counsel the president to wait until the end of the runoff."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai accepted the country's election commission's call for a new election on Tuesday. The runoff between Karzai and his nearest challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, is Nov. 7.

Kerry, who was in Afghanistan when Karzai announced his decision, said the question about a timetable for Obama's decision whether to send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan as recommended by Gen. Stanley McCrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

"I didn't ask the president what his schedule is," Kerry said. "But I would suspect that he will be interested, just a matter of common sense. He's going to want to know what kind of government he's got to deal with in Afghanistan before he makes a decision. So I'd be surprised if he isn't on the same wavelength."

Kerry said his trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan "confirmed to me overwhelmingly ... that the president has been absolutely correct to take this time in order to allow some of these events to unfold and in order to be able to examine our strategy."