U.S. boosting Asian counterterrorism cooperation: Rice
U.S. boosting Asian counterterrorism cooperation: Rice
Associated Press, Phuket, Thailand
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday the United States is stepping up cooperation to fight terrorism in Southeast Asia, warning that terror attacks remain a major threat across the region.
"The threat of extremism is a threat that is worldwide and has had its manifestation in Southeast Asia," she said, citing nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia, in 2002 that killed 202 people. "This is a region that does have a problem."
Southeast Asia terror leader Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali, was arrested in Thailand in 2003 after an investigation assisted by Washington. He is now in U.S. custody.
Hambali is believed to be the main link between al-Qaeda and Jamaah Islamiyah, the regional terror group blamed for the Bali bombings, and a 2003 attack at the J.W. Marriott hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia that killed 12 people.
"With our regional partners, we're intensifying counterterrorism cooperation, we're intensifying intelligence cooperation, we're intensifying law enforcement cooperation," Rice said, without elaborating.
She added: "We've had training and tactical assistance on some of these matters with Thailand and we intend to continue that."
But her decision to skip a key regional security meeting has sent "an uneasy signal" that Washington may be sidelining Southeast Asia, Malaysia's foreign minister said on Monday.
Rice will be the first secretary of state to miss the annual security meeting - hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN - since Alexander Haig skipped it in 1982.
"I hope it is not an indication that the U.S. is giving less importance or showing less interest in ASEAN while focusing on the Middle East," Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar told reporters. "I think ASEAN is an equally important regional area."
Rice told reporters during a one-day visit to Thailand Monday that, "I think this is a vital organization in which we want to engage more. I do have other essential travel in roughly the same timeframe."
The further strengthening of the United States' relationship with Thailand in providing humanitarian assistance after the Dec. 26 tsunami has also helped bolster cooperation in dealing with terrorists, she said.
Rice arrived on the resort island of Phuket on late Sunday after talks in Beijing with Chinese leaders in a four-nation tour through Asia focused primarily on how to get North Korea to give up nuclear weapons development.
In a major breakthrough, Pyongyang said on Saturday it would abandon a yearlong boycott and resume disarmament talks this month.
Rice spoke to reporters after meeting with Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon at the start of a one-day visit to review the country's efforts to rebuild coastal areas battered by the tsunami.
Photo on Page 3, story on Page 11