AP, Kabul :Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Saturday committed to pushing reforms after his picks for attorney general and interior minister won long-sought Cabinet confirmation, while U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pleaded with the government’s power-sharing leaders to bury their “factional divisions” for the good of the country.Yet Ghani could not cite progress toward ending a bitter feud with Afghanistan’s chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, that has hobbled the Kabul government for 18 months. The unwieldy arrangement, which Kerry helped to forge, has left interim ministers in critical positions while the U.S. ally struggles to confront lawlessness, corruption and the Taliban’s resilient and perhaps expanding insurgency.”Democracy requires credible institutions,” Kerry told reporters at the end of his brief stopover in Afghanistan on his way to Japan for a meeting of foreign ministers. “More than that, it requires people from different political, ethnic and geographic factions to be able to come together and work toward a common good.”Underscoring the unstable security situation, several rounds exploded about 650 feet away from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul after Kerry had left the premises Saturday evening. A U.S. official described the explosions as small, and said there was no indication the secretary of state was the target. Local media reported no injuries.Ghani, at a news conference, hailed the Cabinet votes in parliament as a political turning point. Progress on that front “assures us there will be fundamental, comprehensive reforms,” he said through an interpreter.
