Kerry pact warning to reluctant Karzai John Kerry listens to the opening address during a NATO meeting in Brussels on December 3. Brussels: US Secretary of State John Kerry suggested on Tuesday that Afghanistan's defence minister or government, instead of a reluctant President Hamid Karzai, could sign a security pact enabling some US troops to stay in the country after 2014. An assembly of Afghan elders, the Loya Jirga, last month endorsed the security deal with the United States, but Mr Karzai said he might not sign it until after elections next April. The delay has irritated the US and its allies, which want to get on with planning for the smaller, NATO-led training mission that is to stay on in Afghanistan after 2014, when most foreign troops that have been battling Taliban insurgents will have pulled out. The stand-off came as the US military halted ground shipments of cargo leaving Afghanistan via its key Pakistan supply route to ensure the safety of drivers following protests in Pakistan over US drone strikes. The affected route, which runs from Torkham Gate at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to the Pakistani port city of Karachi, has been crucial for the US as it winds down its combat mission in landlocked Afghanistan and moves equipment out of the country. "We have voluntarily halted U.S. shipments of retrograde cargo . . . to ensure the safety of the drivers contracted to move our equipment," said Pentagon spokesman Mark Wright. Mr Wright said the US military expected it could resume its retrograde shipments through the Pakistani route in the near future. He also pointed out that the US has other options to move equipment out of the country. Still, other options are far more costly, including the shipments via the so-called Northern Distribution Network, a complex web of transit routes through Russia and Central Asia. Mr Kerry urged the Afghan government to sign the security deal "sooner, not later" and said this priority was backed by all NATO foreign ministers taking part in a meeting on Tuesday. This is not fooling around . . . This is serious business," he told a news conference in Brussels. I think it is important for the agreement to try to move forward. It doesn't have to be pres (ident)," he said, not finishing the word. You know, his minister of defence (Bismullah Khan Mohammadi) can sign it, the government can sign it, somebody can accept responsibility for this. But I think it is important, for planning purposes, for people who have been extraordinarily patient, who are trying to allocate major amounts of money to sustaining this effort in Afghanistan, to have knowledge of where they are going. After the sacrifices made by US troops and the American people to contribute to Afghanistan's future, Mr Kerry said he didn't think US President Barack Obama appreciated that the pact was "being left in doubt at this critical moment." US and NATO officials have warned that if Mr Karzai does not sign the security deal with the US promptly, both Washington and the alliance would have to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and abandon plans to leave behind a training force of around 8000-12,000 soldiers. The NATO-led force now has 84,000 troops in Afghanistan, the majority American. Although terms of the Afghan-US pact were settled after a year of wrangling, Mr Karzai has since added conditions including the release of all Afghan prisoners from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and an end to military operations involving Afghan homes.