Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has said he believes most foreign troops will be able to leave the country "within four years."
"Within four years, we think our security forces would be able to do the constitutional thing, which is the claim of legitimate monopoly of power," Ghani said in an interview with the BBC broadcast on October 5.
He said that Afghan security forces turned the corner in the fight against the Taliban and "in terms of management and leadership, things are really falling into place."
The Afghan government is struggling to beat back insurgents in the wake of the exit of most NATO forces in 2014.
A U.S. report found earlier this year that the Taliban controls or contests control of about 40 percent of the country, and security forces are also fighting against militants affiliated with the extremist group Islamic State (IS).
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has recently unveiled a strategy to try to defeat the militants after nearly 16 years of war, and officials said more than 3,000 additional U.S. troops are being sent to the country to reinforce the 11,000 U.S. troops already stationed there.
Trump has made an open-ended commitment to Afghanistan, saying U.S. troop levels will be based on "conditions on the ground,” not on “arbitrary timetables.”