UNITED STATES WELCOMES ISTANBUL CONFERENCE ON AFGHANISTAN SECURITY

WASHINGTON: The United States on Wednesday welcomed agreement between Afghanistan,its neighbours, and the wider region on the Istanbul Process on Regional Security and Cooperation for a Secure and Stable Afghanistan.

“Afghanistan’s neighbors and near-neighbors have come together to offer support to a sovereign, independent and democratic Afghanistan,” State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland said in a statement. “They have endorsed Afghan priorities including Afghan-led reconciliation, transition to Afghan security leadership, and regionally integrated economic growth (e.g the New Silk Road vision),” the statement said.

The United States was pleased to participate in the Istanbul conference as a supporter of the process, and they will continue to offer our support to Afghanistan and its region as they work to follow on from the commitments in the declaration to deepen regional cooperation, starting with technical meetings in Kabul in the coming months and a foreign ministerial in Kabul next June, Nuland added. “We look forward to the Bonn Conference for Afghanistan on December 5, at which we will urge the international community to build on these regional efforts by making our long-term commitment to Afghanistan clearer and more specifi,” the spokesperson said.

SECRET MEMO JUSTIFIED KILLING OF US-BORN AWLAQI

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama’s administration crafted a legal document in secret ahead of the assassination of US-born Al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaqi, which permitted the killing of an American citizen without trial, a report said Saturday.

The secret memorandum was written in 2010 to justify the action despite a legal framework that prevents the White House ordering assassinations, the US federal law against murder, and protections for US citizens contained in the Bill of Rights, said the New York Times, citing sources familiar with the memo. The 50-page document, completed in June last year, said the killing could only be lawful if it was not feasible for him to be captured alive. Awlaqi was killed in a drone strike in Yemen in late September, in a raid hailed by Obama as a “major blow” to the Al-Qaeda network.

The killing did not only have to be justified over US laws, but also certain areas of the international laws of war. The memo, however, according to the Times, was crafted specifically for Awlaqi, so does not set a precedent for killing any American that authorities suspect of posing a terrorist threat.

The legal memo alleged Awlaqi was involved in the war between Al-Qaeda and the United States, and that he was in particular a significant threat though the document, said the Times, did not itself assess the evidence against him. The White House had previously declined to answer the tough questions surrounding the killing, as rights groups and legal observers raised eyebrows over the rights of New Mexico-born Awlaqi as an American citizen.

Civil rights groups cried foul with some arguing it would be illegal for the US military to kill an American citizen on the battlefield, following no attempt to indict him. US intelligence officials believed Awlaqi was linked to a US army major charged with shooting dead 13 people in Fort Hood, Texas, and to a Nigerian student accused of trying to blow up a US airliner on December 25, 2009.

He was also believed to be the leader of external operations of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen and had taken the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans. The legal document was crafted with the involvement of all top departments in the Obama administration, the Times said, including White House liaising with legal counsels at the Pentagon, State Department, and National Security Council, along with other US intelligence agencies.

RELATIONSHIP MORE HONEST NOW, SAYS OBAMA

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has said the relationship between the United States and Pakistan has become more honest over time.

In his first interview since Wednesday evening when he announced his new strategy for the Pak-Afghan region, President Obama also acknowledged that the US focus had shifted from Afghanistan to Pakistan. “I think the focus shifted to Pakistan, in my view, two years ago. So we’ve sought to strengthen cooperation with Pakistan,” he told Voice of America, the US government’s international broadcasting service. “Obviously, that has created tensions as well, but overall Pakistan has cooperated with us in our intelligence-collection efforts, in striking at high-value targets within Pakistan.”

Mr.Obama said he believed that no country had suffered more from terrorist attacks than Pakistan, “so this is entirely in their self-interest” to combat terrorism. Explaining his focus-shift, Mr Obama said events forced him to look at Afghanistan and Pakistan as part of a similar problem.

Pakistan’s tribal areas, he said, provided Al Qaeda and other extremists groups with safe havens from where they launched attacks into Afghanistan, Pakistan and around the world. Like his secretary of state, Mr.Obama also said that he believed Pakistan had a legitimate role to play as part of the process of reconciliation with the insurgents.

He also noted that Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently travelled to Islamabad where he agreed to form a core group, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States. This group would “discuss how we can proceed in this process”, Mr.Obama said, noting that Pakistan not only had a responsibility but also “a deep interest in dealing with the terrorist elements that are still in their territory”.

Asked if the US-Pakistan relationship had soured, Mr.Obama said: “I think what happened is that the relationship has become more honest over time.” This openness, he said, had raised “some differences that are real” and the operation to take out Osama bin Laden created additional tensions.

“But I had always been very clear to Pakistan that if we ever found him and had a shot, that we would take it,” he added. “We think that if Pakistan recognises the threat to its sovereignty that comes out of the extremists in its midst, that there’s no reason why we can’t work cooperatively to make sure that both US security interests, Pakistani security interests, and Afghan security interests converge.” Asked if Pakistan has to play a greater role against terrorism, Mr.Obama said: “I think that Pakistan has always seen terrorism as either a problem for somebody else, or has seen elements of the Taliban as a hedge in terms of their influence within Afghanistan.” The US, he said, had suggested to Pakistan that not only terrorism threatened Pakistan more than just about any other country, but it also strained its relations with its neighbours and with friends like the United States.

The US had also informed the Pakistanis that if they had “direct” and “constructive” relationship with the Afghan government, “there’s no reason for them to see the Taliban as a hedge against Afghanistan. Instead, they should see the Afghan government as a partner they can work with”.