THE HAGUE -- Iran on Tuesday dismissed President Obama's decision to send 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan as an "ineffective" strategy to improve security, but it offered to help in efforts to combat drug-trafficking in the war-torn country.
Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Mehdi Akhoundzadeh also said Tehran plans to play an active role in Afghanistan's reconstruction. "The presence of foreign forces has not improved things in the country, and it seems that an increase in the number of foreign forces will prove ineffective, too," he said in prepared remarks to an international conference on Afghanistan at The Hague.
More than 80 countries and organizations gathered for the hastily arranged conference, which was proposed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton three weeks ago.
"Iran is fully prepared to participate in the projects aimed at combating drug-trafficking and the plans in line with developing and reconstruction of Afghanistan," said Mr. Akhoundzadeh, who was sent to the ministerial-level meeting instead of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.
Mrs. Clinton said she had no plans to hold a substantive meeting with the Iranian diplomat. In her remarks, she backed Afghan President Hamid Karzai's plan to reconcile with those Taliban and al Qaeda members who renounce violence.
"We must also support efforts by the government of Afghanistan to separate the extremists of al Qaeda and the Taliban from those who joined their ranks not out of conviction, but out of desperation. This is, in fact, the case for a majority of those fighting with the Taliban," the secretary said. "They should be offered an honorable form of reconciliation and reintegration into a peaceful society, if they are willing to abandon violence, break with al Qaeda, and support the constitution," she added.
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PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > PAKISTAN MEDIA [PK Spectator]: NATO, US, AND PAKISTAN SHOULD ATTACK UZBEKISTAN [B. Mehsud's MilTerr Training Ground agz AFPAK]???
The Syrian president said Monday that he is still interested in pursuing peace with Israel but insisted that 'resistance' by militants must continue to force the incoming Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu to negotiate.
Bashar Assad has repeatedly expressed his readiness to reach a peace deal with Israel over the past year. His speech Monday to a summit of Arab leaders suggested Assad still hopes for talks but was taking a tougher tone to confront what he expects to be a hard-line stance from Netanyahu's government coalition, dominated by right-wing parties.
The 'real aim of Israel's recently elected government is against peace' and that the composition of the incoming Cabinet is a 'clear, unsurprising message to us,' Assad said.
'This doesn't demand we change our strategic option regarding peace,' Assad said. 'But (our) tactics and mechanisms must change, not with the changing the governments of Israel but with ... the aggressiveness Israel shows toward us.'
Assad underlined the need for continued 'resistance,' a reference to anti-Israeli militant groups like the Palestinian Hamas, which Damascus supports.
Resistance is a 'national and patriotic and moral duty and it is the only option,' he said. 'Peace cannot be achieved with an enemy who does not believe in peace without it being imposed on him by resistance.'
Israel and Syria held four rounds of indirect talks mediated by Turkey last year, but Syria cut off the negotiations in protest over Israel's offensive against Hamas in Gaza in December and January.
In any peace deal, Syria demands the return of the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel in turn demands Damascus ends its alliance with Iran and its support for the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
Assad has said in interviews since that the Turkey-mediated talks had stalled because Israel wouldn't make an unambiguous commitment to return all the territory captured in 1967. The outgoing Israeli government of Ehud Olmert has not commented on details of the talks.
Direct talks between the countries broke down in 2000 over a similar issue of the extent of an Israeli withdrawal.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Assad's speech Monday showed that Damascus' intentions on peace remain unclear.
The Lebanese Army said in a statement on Monday that that some citizens were still violating a hunting ban in the south Litani River zone. It reiterated that the Litani zone is an area of operation for both the Lebanese army and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon under UN Resolution 1701.
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#1
"We've cancelled all your elk and duck stamps. So don't even try!"
Hizbullah vowed on Monday that it would deter any possible Israeli aggression but would not carry out any military operation outside the country. "We will not carry out any operation outside our Lebanese territories, but we will not accept after today that the Israeli enemy stages any assault against our land," head of Hizbullah's Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc MP Mohammad Raad said at a funeral in the southern town Sujod.
Hizbullah abducted two Israeli troops in July 2006 from the Israeli side of the border, prompting Israel to launch a devastating 34-day war on Lebanon.
But Raad stressed that "Israel will pay the price for any possible attack on Lebanon, and will receive the proper response."
As for the Western attempts to open dialogue with Hizbullah, Raad said "Hizbullah welcomes this gesture," but "it is a mistake if we assume the United States will abandon Israel for the sake of the Arabs."
"The United States' interest is with Israel, and the US foreign policy will not change," he said.
Britain announced earlier in March that it is willing to open dialogue with the political wing of Hizbullah, while the United States reaffirmed that it still considers the Lebanese party a terrorist organization.
Raad also commented on the parliamentary elections in June, criticizing the attempts of the March 14 Forces to marginalize a large segment of the Lebanese society.
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03/31/2009 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
THE HAGUE -- Iran on Tuesday dismissed President Obama's decision to send 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan as an "ineffective" strategy to improve security, but it offered to help in efforts to combat drug-trafficking in the war-torn country. 
The Syrian president said Monday that he is still interested in pursuing peace with Israel but insisted that 'resistance' by militants must continue to force the incoming Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu to negotiate.
