KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Sunday called Afghanistan’s army ‘‘a powerful force in their own right’’ but declined to say whether he thinks the United States can scale back military training and advising this year as planned.
Carter wrapped up two days in the war zone by consulting with US and Afghan commanders at Kandahar airfield, an important hub in the network of US advisory posts that are due to close before year’s end.
Meeting with reporters at this base in southern Afghanistan, Carter declined to say whether his visit had convinced him that the Kandahar operation should stay open longer.
The advisory work here will wind up this summer unless President Obama alters his plan for ending the US military presence.
‘‘I’m not prepared to share conclusions except with him, when I reach them,’’ Carter said. He said he was impressed by progress in professionalizing the Afghan army and police.
‘‘The Afghan security forces have become a powerful force in their own right, and good partners in their own way,’’ he said.
Carter, who started as Pentagon chief earlier this month, is preparing recommendations to Obama about the future of the American military presence in Afghanistan. On Saturday, Carter met with Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan’s president, and said afterward that Obama is considering whether to slow the pace of troop withdrawals this year and next.
The United States has about 10,000 troops in Afghanistan, including about 2,000 training and advising in Kandahar.
In a separate development Sunday, the Jesuit order said an Indian priest who was abducted in Afghanistan eight months ago has been released.
James Stapleton, a Jesuit Refugee Service spokesman in Rome, said the Rev. Alexis Prem Kumar was released Sunday and has returned to his native India. Stapleton said the priest was tired but happy to be home.
Kumar was visiting a Jesuit Refugee Service-supported school near Herat, western Afghanistan, while serving as the service’s Afghanistan director when he was abducted by several armed men in June.
On Monday, Carter plans to convene a meeting in Kuwait of US military commanders, intelligence officials, and diplomats for what his aides billed as a free-wheeling discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the Obama administration’s strategy for countering the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
Carter intends to examine the intellectual underpinnings of the strategy against the Islamic State, including the bombing campaigns and their connection to broader political and regional goals, a senior defense official said.
Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said among those expected to attend the conference are US ambassadors from Jordan and elsewhere in the Mideast, the top US commanders from Europe, Africa, and the Mideast, and special operations force leaders.