Former US Secretary of State Dr Henry Kissinger says only the complete destruction of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network could safeguard world security.
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Dr Henry Kissinger
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Dr Kissinger, 78, was giving the 2001 Ruttenberg Lecture in London, in which he also praised the special relationship between Britain and the US.
He said the terrorist attacks had been a wake-up call for the US, but they also presented an opportunity for the world to unite and resolve its issues.
Speaking about events following September 11th, he said: "The Taliban has to be eliminated and bin Laden and his network has to be unambiguously destroyed and this has to be done in a time limit because if the Taliban is standing at some point in the future they will become a symbol for the ability to resist the strongest nation and its allies and their response to an outrageous and unprovoked attack on the US."
Since World War II, the US has been the main protector of countries around the world and that structure would disintegrate if they failed in their war against terrorism, he said.
Dr Kissinger was the US Secretary of State between 1973 and 1977 whose brokering of negotiations between Arabs, Israelis, China and the then Soviet Union led to the coining of the phrase "shuttle diplomacy". He won the Nobel peace prize in 1973.
AP