Hamid Karzai considering early Afghan presidential elections in 2013 According to the Afghan constitution, the president's term should expire in May 2014 and elections must be held 30 to 60 days before that. However, Karzai delayed the 2009 presidential elections by about six months because of security concerns. A subsequent, drawn-out battle over fraud at the ballot box led to him not actually being sworn in until November that year. It is not clear if Karzai considers his second five-year term as starting from May or November 2009. It is uncertain if Karzai would go through with early elections. He has ruled out running for a third term. Karzai made the comments at a news conference with Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who was in Kabul for talks on the transition of security responsibilities from the international coalition to Afghan security forces. Rasmussen said Nato it is on track to fully hand over responsibility for securing Afghanistan to local forces by the end of 2014 as scheduled. Nato also said Afghan troops would be ready to take the lead role around the country by mid-2013, allowing international combat forces to move into a support and training role. Earlier Rasmussen flew to an Afghan special forces training camp on the outskirts of the capital. "We will stick to the road map and we will gradually hand over by 2014," Rasmussen told Afghan special forces during his visit to their main training base outside Kabul. The security transition began last year, when Nato handed over responsibility for areas that are home to half the nation's population - with coalition forces in those regions now in a support role. The handover took place in two stages and a third tranche is expected before a Nato summit in Chicago in late May. Another three phases are planned over the coming year. "Thanks to the courage and commitment of the Afghan forces we will reach out common goal of a secure Afghanistan," Rasmussen said. What I have seen makes me confident that we will fulfil our goal of handing over responsibility to the Afghan national security forces.