U.S., Australia to up terror fight in SE Asia
U.S., Australia to up terror fight in SE Asia
Lawrence Bartlett, Agence France-Presse/Adelaide, Australia
The United States and Australia agreed on Friday to intensify counter-terrorism efforts in Southeast Asia and boost joint training for conventional warfare at annual top-level bilateral security talks.
The two countries also pledged in a joint communique released after the Australia-U.S. Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) to pursue their efforts to defeat "terrorists and insurgents" in war-ravaged Iraq.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his Australian counterpart Robert Hill, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick attended the talks in Adelaide.
A convoy of cars carrying the men from their meeting at the town hall in this South Australian capital ran the gauntlet of a small but vocal group of protesters who called them war criminals.
Scuffles broke out as the demonstrators, who object to Australia's commitment of troops to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, were held back by lines of police.
At the news conference, Rumsfeld responded angrily to a question about whether allegations this week that prisoners were beaten, tortured and starved in a secret prison in Baghdad showed that the invasion had changed nothing.
"Anytime anyone is mistreated it is damaging and unfortunate and wrong," he said. "I don't know the facts. What we do know is the situation is being investigated by the Iraqi government.
"We're cooperating with them to determine what actually took place."
The joint communique said: "Both sides reaffirmed the critical importance of supporting the efforts of the region's governments to defeat terrorism in Southeast Asia.
"They agreed to intensify and coordinate closely their respective efforts to assist countries in the region in this endeavor, building on the progress already achieved in working with partners like Indonesia and the Philippines."
Downer later told a news conference that Australia and the U.S. were "impressed" by Indonesia's recent achievements in countering terrorism.
Indonesia last week hunted down and killed one of the region's most wanted men, Malaysian bombmaker Azahari Husin, who had been blamed for a string of deadly attacks including the Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005.
Indonesian courts have also convicted and sentenced several alleged members of the al-Qaeda-linked Jamaah Islamiyah group for their role in the first Bali bombings, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
The statement gave no details of the new measures to combat terrorism, saying only that they "emphasized the importance of encouraging governments and institutions that promote tolerance and work to counter extremism".
It said both countries "welcomed Japan's increasing contribution to regional security and agreed on the importance of greater trilateral cooperation", pledging three-way talks "at an early opportunity".
Australian Prime Minister John Howard is a close ally of U.S. President George W. Bush, contributing troops to campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the two sides "reaffirmed their commitment to defeating the terrorists and insurgents in Iraq".
They also announced a program of U.S. strategic bomber training in Australia as "part of their commitment to enhance combined training and exercising".