Leaders vow to combat terrorism

MANILA: Pacific-rim nations closed ranks against terrorism yesterday at the end of a summit darkened by last week’s attacks in Paris, but still Washington and Moscow sparred over how to deal with Syria and the Islamic State fighters sheltering there.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation group’s 21 leaders vowed to prevent terrorism from undermining values that underpin their economies, and said there was a need for greater international co-operation to fight the scourge.

“Under the shadow cast by the terrorist attacks in Paris, Beirut, and against Russian aircraft over the Sinai and elsewhere, we strongly condemn all acts, methods, and practices of terrorism in all their forms and manifestations,” they said in a declaration after their summit in Manila.

The mood was sombre at the Apec summit after last Friday’s killing spree in Paris, where at least 129 people died, and this overshadowed the annual meeting’s usual focus on growth, trade and development issues.

US President Barack Obama said many nations had already been working together to defeat the Islamic State, but it would be a multi-year task and only a political settlement in civil wartorn Syria would eliminate the group’s safe havens there.

He said a solution to Syria’s turmoil could not include President Bashar al-Assad remaining in power because most people in Syria “consider him a brutal, murderous dictator”, and he again took Russia to task for propping up the country’s leader.

Russia began air strikes in Syria at the end of September. It has always said its main target is Islamic State militants, but most of its bombs in the past hit territory held by other groups opposed to its ally, Assad. Russia unleashed intensified air strikes against Islamic State positions after investigators concluded a terrorist bomb brought down a Russian airliner over Egypt last month. – Reuters