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Barack Obama's inauguration as US president 'perfect opportunity' for diplomatic approach to conflicts across the globe
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Thursday, 27, Nov 2008 06:57
The approaching inauguration of Barack Obama as US president should represent a sea-change in diplomatic approach to the world's conflicts.
The future administration of President-elect Obama favours direct diplomacy in global trouble spots, must notably in Iran and Afghanistan.
A major cross-party report out on Thursday urged Britain to seize on Mr Obama's victory in the United States presidential elections this month to change key elements of national security policy.
The Institute for Public Policy Research's (IPPR) Dr Ian Kearns, deputy chair of the commission on national security in the 21st century, said: "We should follow [Mr] Obama's lead on diplomacy and talk to enemies, something we could not do prior.
"The impetus of our report has not changed with the election of Barack Obama but it has made a lot of what we wanted to do a lot easier."
The IPPR is calling for a regional approach to be adopted in Afghanistan as well as an end to dealing with states such as Iran on a case-by-case basis in terms of nuclear proliferation.
On Afghanistan, Lord George Robertson, the former secretary general of Nato and co-chair of the commission, said the election of Mr Obama, who envisages a world free of nuclear weapons, meant issues in Iran and Afghanistan could both be tackled from wholly different perspectives.
"We by necessity we have to look at a nation like Afghanistan in a regional context," Lord Robertson told inthenews.co.uk.
"Up to now the Americans have been unwilling to talk to Iran about anything. A regional approach to that we believe would be much more productive. I'm not going to say in advance if that means talking to the Taliban, or whatever. But in quiet back-channel diplomacy you've got to discover how you can get that country back to normality."
Lord Robertson's co-chair, Lord Paddy Ashdown, said the international community should be prepared to talk to "some very unpleasant people".
Another commissioner, Lord Charles Guthrie – chief of the defence staff from 1997 to 2001 – said it was "extremely important" to talk to regional leaders in Afghanistan.
But he added: "There comes a time when talking has to stop, however. When terrorists get too strong we have to do something."