Should We Negotiate With Terrorist?
Negotiation with terrorist has been an issue of the past and worth debating on. Governments all over the world are also in for this motion of not negotiating with terrorist. Former US President George W. Bush declared in 2003, “You’ve got to be strong, not weak. The only way to deal with these people is to bring them to justice. You can’t talk to them. You can’t negotiate with them.” UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher also during the IRA violence, vowed never to negotiate with terrorists. Other governments such as Colombia, Turkey and other Spanish leaders have also pledged not to negotiate with terrorist organizations.
This argument has also been backed by prominent scholars of terrorism. According to Paul Wilkinson (2001 incited in Toros,2008), it would be ‘totally unacceptable’ for talks to be opened with the assailants who killed 58 tourists in Luxor, Egypt in 1997. Wardlaw, and other scholars also believe that negotiations on the underlying political demands of terrorists are unlikely to resolve the conflict and may simply incite more terrorism. In this case, According to Zartman (1990 incited in Toros,2008),), the overall subject of negotiating with terrorist remains a taboo and the standard doctrine holds that one should not negotiate with terrorists.
Negotiation with terrorist would
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A typical example is seen in the case where Jimmy Carter negotiated for the release of 52 US citizens held hostage by Islamic extremists in Tehran’s US embassy Irish. Also the British governments held a series of negotiations with both the IRA and UDA to broker peace and end the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Even the current Netanyahu led government in Israel, with its hard-line stance on terrorism, is currently in negotiations with Hamas for the release of IDF Sergeant Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by Hamas forces over a year