FILE - In this March 23, 2011 file photograph, an Afghan detainee is seen through iron mesh inside the Parwan detention facility near Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan. Afghan and U.S. military officials have signed a deal to transfer oversight of the main U.S. detention center in the country to the Afghan government within six months. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File)
FILE - In this March 23, 2011 file photograph, an Afghan detainee is seen through iron mesh inside the Parwan detention facility near Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan. Afghan and U.S. military officials have signed a deal to transfer oversight of the main U.S. detention center in the country to the Afghan government within six months. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File)
FILE - In this March 23, 2011 file photograph, Afghan detainees are through mesh wire fence inside the Parwan detention facility near Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan. Afghan and U.S. military officials have signed a deal to transfer oversight of the main U.S. detention center in the country to the Afghan government within six months. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File)
FILE - In this March 23, 2011 file photograph, Afghan detainees, seen through a mesh wire fence, prepare for noon prayers inside the Parwan detention facility near Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan. Afghan and U.S. military officials have signed a deal to transfer oversight of the main U.S. detention center in the country to the Afghan government within six months. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File)
FILE - NATO forces Commander Gen. John Allen is seen in this 2011 file photo, left, and Afghanistan Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak is seen in this 2006 file photo will sign a memorandum of understanding later on Friday March 9, 2012 according to the Afghan Foreign Ministry. A Western official says the document is about the long-delayed handover of detention facilities from U.S. to Afghan control. The official says the language of the agreement is still being discussed but the major issues have been decided. (AP Photo/FILES)
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? The U.S. military signed a last-minute agreement Friday to transfer its main detention center in the country to Afghan control in six months ? a key step toward a long-term pact on U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.
The deal removes a sticking point that had threatened to derail talks between the two countries for a long-term partnership that is critical to defining the U.S. role as it draws down troops here.
Friday's agreement extends a deadline set by Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the transfer of some 3,000 Afghan detainees at the Parwan facility, a U.S.-run prison adjoining its Bagram military base outside the capital Kabul, but also for the first time spells out an American commitment to a hard transfer date.
Under the deal, the U.S. will still have access to Parwan and will be able to block the release of detainees it thinks should continue to be held.
The U.S. and Afghanistan have been in negotiations for months to formalize a role for U.S. forces after NATO's scheduled transfer of security responsibility to the Afghan government at the end of 2014.
U.S. and Afghan officials have said that they want a strategic partnership agreement signed by the time a NATO summit convenes in Chicago in May, but talks had stalled, mainly because of disagreements over the control of detention facilities and night raids by international forces in Afghan villages.
Gen. John Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, called Friday's deal a sign of real progress toward the larger partnership.
"This is an important step. It is a step forward in our strategic partnership negotiations," Allen told reporters in the capital before signing the agreement alongside Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak.
Karzai had previously demanded that the Parwan facility be handed over by Friday. The new deal will put an Afghan general in charge of Parwan within days, according to presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi, but will also give a six-month window to gradually transfer detainees to Afghan oversight.
According to the document, the U.S. will continue to provide logistical support for 12 months and a joint U.S.-Afghan commission will decide on any detainee releases until a more permanent pact is adopted. The joint commission will have to come to a consensus on any such decision, according to U.S. officials involved in the negotiations ? a setup that will essentially give U.S. officials power to block any releases they do not agree with.
The officials, who spoke anonymously to discuss confidential talks ahead of the signing, said the first 500 detainees are expected to be transferred in 45 days. The U.S. government had already handed over a few hundred detainees to the Afghans previously.
The officials said the deal does not apply to the approximately 50 non-Afghans at Parwan, who will remain in U.S. custody.
The officials also said that they still need to work out how new detainees will be handled. Currently, the U.S. military assesses whether people captured on the battlefield are a threat and then either lets them go, hands them over to Afghan authorities or sends them to Parwan.
The U.S. also operates what it has described as temporary holding pens for gathering intelligence from detainees in Afghanistan, though officials have confirmed anonymously that some detainees have been held at these centers for up to nine weeks. The agreement does not appear to address these sites.
Friday's memorandum comes as relations between the U.S. and Afghanistan have become more tense in recent weeks following the burning of Qurans and other religious materials at Bagram military base near the capital Kabul, sparking riots and attacks that killed some 30 people.
The U.S. has apologized and said the Qurans came from the Parwan detention center and were taken out because they had extremist messages written in them, but that they should not have been sent to be burned. Karzai said soon after the Quran burnings became public that these types of incidents would not occur if the Afghans were in charge of the detention facility.
The issue of night raids, meanwhile, still has to be resolved.
Karzai has demanded an end to night raids in Afghan villages by coalition forces. The raids target insurgents, but Karzai has said civilians are too often rounded up or killed when raids turn violent. He insists that if there are night raids, Afghan troops should conduct them alone.
The U.S. officials said talks are already underway on a separate memorandum governing night raids.
President Barack Obama and Karzai discussed the stalled security pact talks in a video conference on Thursday. White House press secretary Jay Carney said the two leaders noted progress toward completing an agreement "that reinforces Afghan sovereignty while addressing the practical requirements of transition."
The U.S.-Afghan pact is expected to provide for several thousand U.S. troops to stay and train Afghan forces and help with counterterrorism operations. It would outline the legal status of those forces, their operating rules and where they would be based.
The agreement is also seen as a means of assuring the Afghan people that the U.S. does not plan to abandon their country, even as it withdraws its combat forces.
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Associated Press writers Sebastian Abbot and Amir Shah contributed to this report in Kabul.
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