US Secretary of State John Kerry has defended the US move to try and open talks with the Taliban leadership, saying it was better to try to bring people to the table to resolve issues rather than try to fight it out.
Kerry, who was addressing a gathering of Ethiopian students at the University of Addis Ababa, cited an example, saying that years ago people thought the US should not talk to China because of Mao Zedong. He said people thought the US shouldn't talk to the Vietnamese during that war, but even as the US fought them they had discussions in Paris about peace, reports The Express Tribune.
Kerry also defended America's use of drones to hunt down wanted terror leaders, saying the pilotless drone programme has been one of the most controversial aspects of the US fight against al Qaeda and Taliban militants in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US. Top leaders from both networks have been killed as a result of drone fire.
Yet the use of drones has been sharply criticised particularly in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the deaths of civilians caught in the crossfire has sparked a groundswell of anger.
But Kerry insisted that the US has one of the strictest, most accountable and fairest programmes, where each target was carefully monitored and sometimes it takes a year to build the authority to know that they are correct.
