Also on Friday, Secretary General Rasmussen said the NATO defense ministers agreed to begin a process of identifying criteria for an eventual handover of security responsibility to Afghan forces.

VOA: standard.2009.10.23

"This is a document that puts us on an equal footing and puts obligations on the two of us, which forces us to have an election that satisfies the criteria for democracy,"

VOA: standard.2009.11.01

Asked at a press conference in Kabul why the criteria for quarantined votes has changed from 600 per ballot box to more than 1,000,chief electoral officer Daoud Ali Najafi says the ECC just made this decision and the Afghan government's Independent Election Commission agreed to it.

VOA: standard.2009.09.12