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'The time has come to choose sides'

Dharam Shourie in New York

Washington has offered a stark choice to 15 Arab states asking them to either join the international coalition against terrorism or risk being isolated.

Assistant Secretary of State for Near East William J Burns on Friday met the Arab envoys and delivered what a senior administration official called a simple message: "The time has come to choose sides."

Burns gave the Arab representatives, including a Syrian official, a list of actions their nations were expected to take against terrorism, including the arrest and prosecution of terrorists on their soil, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

Syria is on the US State Department's list of nations which foster terrorism.

The State Department has sent a cable to all its embassies and posts around the world listing the conditions that nations were expected to meet in order to qualify for membership in the anti-terror coalition.

Quoting from the cable, a State Department official said it included a demand that each country must "wrap up and prosecute terrorists on your own soil".

The Arab representatives, the paper said, were not given a deadline for deciding whether to sign on to the anti-terror cause. Nor was there any discussion of possible military contributions by the Arab nations represented at the meeting.

"Whether the Arab governments, which must often contend with significant segments of their populations who sympathise with the goals of militants like Osama bin Laden, will agree to the administration's request is an open question," the daily said.

However, Egyptian ambassador Nabil Fahmy said Washington must focus on finding and punishing those responsible for Tuesday's attacks and not broaden the effort to include other geopolitical goals, it said.

He said the international coalition that waged the Gulf War in 1991 - which included Egypt and Syria - worked because it kept to the clear objective of pushing the Iraqis out of Kuwait.

However, just hours before the session with the Arab diplomats, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel spoke to President Goerge W Bush and expressed scepticism about the US enlisting the aid of Israel's foes, Syria and the Palestinian Authority.

"If there is an attempt to bring Syria and Arafat into the coalition, then that is a problem," an Israeli official was quoted as saying.

PTI

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