Obama praises Kerry for role ensuring audit of Afghan Prez poll votes

United States President Barack Obama has praised Secretary of State John Kerry and Afghan civilian and military leaders for their efforts in putting in place a system of audit to determine the results in the recent Afghan presidential election.

"I thanked Secretary Kerry and our outstanding military and civilian leaders in Afghanistan for their success in helping to break the impasse over the presidential election there. Thanks to their efforts and of course thanks to the Afghans and the courage of the two candidates, both of whom I spoke to last week, the candidates have agreed to abide to the results of a comprehensive and internationally supervised audit that will review all of the ballots and to form a unity government," President Obama said.

"If they keep their commitments, Afghanistan will witness the first democratic transfer of power in the history of that country. This progress will honor both candidates who have put the interests of a united Afghanistan first, the millions of Afghans who defied threats in order to vote and the service of our troops and civilians who have sacrificed so much," he added.

Obama spoke with Afghan presidential contender Abdullah Abdullah on July 7 and rival Ashraf Ghani on July 8 to urge calm and to call for a review of fraud charges in that country's election, the White House said.

Last week, the Independent Election Commission had announced that Ghani won the June 14 second round with 56.44 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results. The tally might change when the final official numbers come out on July 22.