#6
RUSSIA BELIEVES MILITARY MIGHT NOT LAST, BEST
& ONLY SOLUTION TO TERROR

NEW DELHI, October 18, 2001. /From RIA Novosti's Valery Sevryukov/. - The roots of the problem of terrorism will not be eliminated until the situation is settled in the world's many flashpoints, including the Middle East, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Trubnikov believes. He was speaking to RIA Novosti upon arrival in New Delhi, where he was to attend an extraordinary meeting of the joint Russian-Indian workgroup on Afghanistan.

The Deputy Foreign Minister stressed that military might is not the ultimate and certainly not the only solution to the problem of terrorism as the war on terror is a far more long-term, many-sided, and complex issue. "It includes economic and social leverage and the humanitarian component," Trubnikov said.

"It is not by hearsay that Russia and India know the problem of terrorism. We have a lot of approaches in common to the way we need to tackle it," he added.

He went on to say drawing out the military phase of the ongoing war on terror would not be a welcome development. "The longer it goes on, the larger the danger looms of victims among the civilians and the combatants in the action alike," he said. "This would adversely affect not just the region, but the rest of the world as well, including the United States." Enlarging on Afghanistan's future, Trubnikov stressed the post-Taliban government would have to be a coalition and multi-denominational one. Representatives of the Taliban regime are, too, entitled to aspire to positions in such a government. However, he said the regime has largely discredited itself as the Taliban is hardly a partner to expect a shift in position from. Furthermore, they are the force that was instrumental in Osama bin Laden and other terrorists' accession to power and in spreading the scourge of terror beyond Afghanistan.

In addition, Trubnikov noted that Pakistan has both the right and the capability to take part in any steps geared toward postwar settlement in Afghanistan. "However, one has to bear in mind that the whole business is first and foremost up to the Afghans themselves", the co-chairman of the Afghanistan workgroup said.

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