KABUL // The Afghan president Hamid Karzai has rejected a provision of a US-Afghan security pact, putting the entire deal in jeopardy just days before the country’s leaders gather to debate it.

The question of whether foreign troops will be able to search Afghan homes after Nato’s combat mission ends next year has long been a sticking point of an agreement setting out the terms under which remaining US forces will operate there.

But in a series of meetings over the weekend the enter-and-search issue emerged as the biggest roadblock facing the security pact as Karzai dug his heels in, an Afghan official, who has been close to the talks, said.

Without an accord on the Bilateral Security Agreement, Washington says it could pull out all of its troops at the end of next year, leaving Afghanistan’s fledgling security forces on their own to fight the Taliban-led insurgency.

The United States is concerned that as campaigning intensifies for Afghanistan’s presidential election next April, it will be increasingly difficult to broker a security pact.

“They want a window left open to go into Afghan homes, but the president does not accept that – not unilaterally and not joint,” the Afghan official said, referring to house raids by US troops either on their own or with Afghan forces.

On Thursday, a five-day national gathering of the country’s political, tribal and other leaders, called a Loya Jirga, will begin to debate the agreement in Kabul.

Talks stalled over the house-search issue during two meetings Mr Karzai held at his palace with the US ambassador James Cunningham and Nato’s commander, General Joseph Dunford.

“From our side there is no flexibility on this issue of allowing Americans to search Afghan homes,” the Afghan official said.

* Reuters