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Bush Rejects New Taliban Offer
President Bush pointedly rejected a Taliban offer Sunday to discuss turning over Osama bin Laden if the United States ended the bombing in Afghanistan. "This is non-negotiable," he said.
Returning to the White House after a weekend at Camp David, the president said the bombing would not stop unless the ruling Taliban meet his terms: "Turn him over and his colleagues and the thugs he hides as well as destroy his camps," the president said. He also told the Taliban to release "the innocent people being held hostage in Afghanistan."
Eight foreign aid workers, including two Americans, have been held by the Taliban since August on charges of trying to convert Muslims to Christianity ¡ª a serious crime under the regime's strict Islamic rule.
"There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt" for bin Laden in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States. "We know he's guilty."
"There is no negotiation, period," Bush said of the U.S. demand that the Taliban hand over bin Laden and his lieutenants.
In Jalalabad, Afghanistan, the third most powerful figure in the ruling Taliban regime told reporters Sunday that the Taliban would discuss handing over bin Laden if the bombing stopped. The Taliban also would require evidence from Washington that bin Laden was behind the attacks.
"We would be ready to hand him over to a third country," one that would never "come under pressure from the United States," if those two conditions were met, Deputy Prime Minister Haji Abdul Kabir said.
In response, Bush said: "There is nothing to negotiate about. They are harboring a terrorist."
The offer came exactly one week after Bush ordered military strikes in Afghanistan in his campaign to eradicate terrorism. The morning of the strikes, Bush rejected a similar offer from the Taliban.
It also was made a day after the Taliban's supreme leader rebuffed a "second chance" by Bush for the Islamic militia to surrender bin Laden.
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