KABUL, Afghanistan — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai here yesterday and later reiterated his call for additional U.S. forces to deal with conditions in Afghanistan that he described as “precarious and urgent.”

Obama joined Karzai for a “working lunch,” marking the first meeting for the Afghan president and the presumptive Democratic nominee. Obama’s colleagues in the congressional delegation visiting Afghanistan, Rhode Island’s Sen. Jack Reed and Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., were also at the lunch, said Humayun Hamidzada, Karzai’s chief spokesman.

Hamidzada said the heads of Afghanistan’s ministries of defense and foreign affairs and Karzai’s national security adviser also attended the nearly two-hour meeting.

In a joint statement issued after the meeting with Karzai, the three senators said that “we are talking to the leaders of Afghanistan about whether we have the right strategy and the right resources to defeat the Taliban and al Qaida, and to support lasting stability.

“Our message to the Afghan government is this: we want a strong partnership based on ‘more for more’ — more resources from the United States and NATO, and more action from the Afghan government to improve the lives of the Afghan people.”

Interviewed in Afghanistan for CBS’s Face The Nation, Obama called Afghanistan the “central front on our battle against terrorism.” He said the Iraq war had distracted attention away from this critical battlefront and that it is now time to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq and shifting more military resources into Afghanistan.

“If we wait until the next administration, it could be a year before we get those additional troops on the ground here in Afghanistan, and I think that would be a mistake,” he said. “I think the situation is getting urgent enough that we’ve got to start doing something now.”

Obama also said that the United States should press neighboring Pakistan harder to help eliminate the terrorist sanctuaries and training camps along the border that are fueling the strength of the Taliban and al Qaida in Afghanistan. “I think that message has not been sent,” he said in implicit criticism of the current administration.

Obama, Reed and Hagel are due to arrive in Iraq today for meetings with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and top U.S. military and diplomatic officials in the country.

Maliki’s government spent much of yesterday attempting to step back from earlier remarks that seemed to indicate he supported Obama’s plan for troop withdrawal.

According to a translation of remarks Maliki made to the German magazine Der Spiegel, the Iraqi said, “Obama’s remarks that — if he takes office — in 16 months he would withdraw the forces, we think that this period could increase or decrease a little, but that it could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq.”

He continued: “Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq.”

The interview prompted immediate concern from the Bush administration, which called to seek clarification from Maliki’s office.

Later in the day, a Maliki aide released a statement saying the remarks had been mistranslated and misunderstood, though without citing specifics. Der Spiegel issued a statement standing by the quotations.

Meanwhile, in an interview on Fox News Sunday yesterday, Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that setting a two-year deadline to pull all troops out of Iraq would not be advisable.

“I think the consequences could be very dangerous in that regard,” Mullen said. “I’m convinced at this point in time that making reductions based on conditions on the ground are very important.”

Obama’s movements remained shrouded in secrecy, but Iraqi officials said that he was scheduled to meet with Maliki in the hours before the prime minister leaves on a visit to Germany today and also with President Jalal Talabani. Americans here strictly warned Iraqi officials not to give any details about his visit.

While in Afghanistan, Karzai and the three U.S. politicians discussed topics including education, health care and the state of the Afghan National Army and Afghan national police.

“The discussions focused on the significant progress that we’ve made but also on the unmet challenges we still have ahead of us,” Hamidzada said.

The meeting with Karzai took place a few hours after Obama, Reed and Hagel met with U.S. troops at Camp Eggers, a heavily fortified U.S. base in the Afghan capital.

Material from The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times was used to compile this report.

Update

•U.S.-led troops and Afghan forces killed nine Afghan police yesterday, calling in air strikes and fighting on the ground for four hours after both sides mistook the other for militants, Afghan officials said. In a separate incident, NATO said it accidentally killed at least four Afghan civilians Saturday night. A NATO soldier also was killed in the east. The incidents could further undercut popular support for the government and foreign forces operating here. (AP)