United States will always be a Pacific nation and stay engaged in that part of the world, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Singapore Saturday.
He was speaking at the annual security meeting of defence ministers in Singapore, dubbed the Shangri-La Dialogue.
Singapore (dpa) - The United States will always be a Pacific nation and stay engaged in that part of the world, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Singapore Saturday.
He was speaking at the annual security meeting of defence ministers in Singapore, dubbed the Shangri-La Dialogue.
Cooperation among free nations was not just desirable but critical in the present security environment, he said.
"The struggle that is taking place in that religion is relatively between a small minority of violent extremists against an overwhelming majority of the remaining Muslim people.
"How is this going to end? It is going to end over a long period of time with the majority prevailing and what we need to do is believe in free systems and don't believe that it is desirable for people to go out and kill innocent men, women and children."
On Iraq, Rumsfeld said the US would stay the course even if things got tough.
"I read every day that the reason the United States is in the Middle East is for oil. It's not why we are there. We do not intend to stay there and take the Iraqi oil. We cannot occupy the country for any period of time.
"Our troops would like to go home, they will go home at a pace when we, with our friends and allies in the coalition, pass on the responsibility to the Iraqi security forces so that they can pull up their socks and take responsibility for the country
"It is the Iraqi people who will have to suppress the insurgency, not the coalition forces, not foreign forces."
Rumsfeld also commended Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore for the efforts they have taken to enhance the safety and security along the Malacca Straits.
The three-day Shangri-La Dialogue - named after the Singapore hotel where it is held - brings together delegates from 22 countries, including the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Japan, China and India. This year's Shangri-La meeting is the fifth since the dialogue was set up in 2002.
