John Kerry wins truce over Afghan poll

Kabul: US Secretary of State John Kerry convinced Afghanistan’s feuding presidential candidates on Saturday to agree to a total recount of last month's presidential election, which has threatened to split the country along ethnic lines.

After two days of intense talks between Kerry, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, all parties agreed that the best way out of the acrimonious and protracted deadlock was to delay the inauguration and recount all the ballots from scratch.

Preliminary results from the run-off vote on June 14 put Dr Ghani, a former World Bank official, well ahead but Dr Abdullah rejected the result, claiming widespread fraud and calling the outcome a "coup" against the Afghan people.

In a joint news conference with Kerry held just before midnight, the two rivals agreed to abide by the outcome of a U.N.-supervised recount.

“Both candidates have committed to participate in and abide by the results of the largest and most comprehensive audit,” Mr Kerry said. “Every single ballot that was cast will be audited... This is the strongest possible signal by both candidates of the desire to restore legitimacy to the process.”