Romney says US should not negotiate with Taliban

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C.: US Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney said on Monday the United States should not negotiate with the Taliban and he criticised the Obama administration for efforts to broker secret talks with the Afghan insurgents.

Romney, who has won the first two Republican contests in the race to pick a nominee to face Democratic President Barack Obama in November, strongly rejected any sort of talks with the Taliban.

“The right course for America is not to negotiate with the Taliban while the Taliban are killing our soldiers,” Romney said during a debate of the five Republican presidential hopefuls ahead of Saturday’s South Carolina primary. “The right course is to recognise that they are the enemy of the United States.”

Romney said Obama had put the United States in a position of “extraordinary weakness” because he had made a decision based on a political calendar on when to pull US troops out of Afghanistan and because he has even publicly announced the date when the United States would completely withdraw from the country.

“We don’t negotiate from a position of weakness as we are pulling our troops out,” Romney said. “We should not negotiate with the Taliban. We should defeat the Taliban.”

Senior US officials told Reuters last month that the United States had been involved in 10 months of secret dialogue with the Taliban. Officials had said the talks had reached a critical juncture and a Taliban prisoner transfer was possible from the Guantanamo Bay military prison into Afghan government custody.

US officials had said a transfer of prisoners could be one confidence-building measure critical to making progress on a peace deal between the Taliban and the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

But Romney said those negotiations sent the wrong message to the people of Afghanistan.

“Think what it says to the people of Afghanistan…if they see us, their ally, turning and negotiating with the very people they are going to have to protect their nation from.”

If Romney wins the Republican nomination, he will face Obama on Election Day Nov 6. Obama’s record on foreign policy and national security is likely to be one of his strengths, however, because he can point to the killing last year of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as one of his victories.

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Posted in: INTERNATIONAL

Brigadier among 12 killed in Syria

DAMASCUS: Twelve people, among them a brigadier, were killed on Monday in Syria where a peace plan monitored by Arab observers has failed to douse a 10-month-old struggle between President Bashar al-Assad and his foes.

Arab foreign ministers will meet on Sunday to discuss the future of the mission sent last month to check if Syria was abiding by the agreement it accepted on November 2.

The Arab plan required Syria to halt the bloodshed, withdraw the military from cities, free detainees and hold a dialogue.

Hundreds of people have been reported killed in Syria since the monitors deployed on December 26.

Random gunfire by pro-Assad militiamen killed five people, including a woman, and wounded nine in the restive city of Homs, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

A sniper later shot dead a 16year-old girl there, it added.

It said five soldiers were killed when they tried to change sides during a clash with rebels in the northwestern province of Idlib, adding that 15 soldiers had succeeded in defecting.

The state news agency Sana said an ‘armed terrorist group’ shot dead Brigadier-General Mohammed Abdul-Hamid alAwad and wounded his driver in the countryside near Damascus.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki moon reiterated a call for Mr Assad to ‘stop killing, and listen to his people’.

During a visit to Abu Dhabi, he said: “I hope the UN Security Council handles Syria in a coherent manner and with asense of gravity,” but did not recommend any specific action.

“The casualties have reached such an unacceptable stage we cannot let the situation continue this way,” Mr Ban said.

The response to the uprising by security forces has killed more than 5,000 people, according to a UN count. The Syrian authorities say 2,000 members of the security forces have also been killed.

The deaths of 32 civilians and soldiers were reported on Sunday.

The head of the Arab monitoring mission is due to report to an Arab League committee on Thursday before Arab foreign ministers gather to consider their next step on Syria.

Qatar, which heads the committee, has suggested Arab troops step in, an idea that is anathema to Damascus and which Arab nations such as Iraq, Lebanon and Algeria are likely to oppose.

The League could also refer Syria to the Security Council if it concludes that its own peace effort has failed. The security council has been paralysed so far because Russia and China oppose any resolution that could lead to UN sanctions or western military action against Syria.

On Sunday, Mr Assad proclaimed the latest of several amnesties for `crimes` committed during the uprising. Some prisoners were released the same day and more on Monday, activists said.

Mohamed Saleh, an activist in Homs, said about 185 people had been freed there, though some had been freed on bail and would still face trial. Many more were expected to be released.—Reuters

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Posted in: INTERNATIONAL