Western governments should talk to Islamist extremists including Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to end violence, one of former Prime Minister Tony Blair's closest aides said in comments published Saturday. "It's very difficult for democratic governments to do -- talk to a terrorist movement that's killing your people," Blair's former chief of staff Jonathan Powell he told The Guardian in an interview. "(But) if I was in government now I would want to have been talking to Hamas, I would be wanting to communicate with the Taliban and I would want to find a channel to Al-Qaeda."| Maybe that's why you're no longer in government ... |
He accepted though that "there's nothing to say to Al-Qaeda and they've got nothing to say to us at the moment" and there was also a problem of whom to talk to and about what. "But at some stage you're going to have to come to a political solution as well as a security solution. And that means you need the ability to talk," he added.
The Foreign Office dismissed Powell's suggestion outright. A spokesman told the newspaper: "It is inconceivable that Her Majesty's Government would ever seek to reach a mutually acceptable accommodation with a terrorist organisation like Al-Qaeda."