Time to talk to al-Qaida, senior police chief urges

[TriWooOx]

Britain should negotiate with leaders of al-Qaida as part of a new strategy to end its violent campaign, one of the country's most senior police officers has said.

Speaking to the Guardian, Sir Hugh Orde, head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said the experiences of his force tackling the IRA had convinced him that policing alone - detecting plots and arresting people - would not defeat al-Qaida inspired terrorism.

Orde, the frontrunner to be the next commissioner of the Metropolitan police, said he could not think of a single terrorism campaign in history that ended without negotiation.

Asked whether Britain should attempt to talk to al-Qaida, he said: "If you want my professional assessment of any terrorism campaign, what fixes it is talking and engaging and judging when the conditions are right for that to take place.

"Is that a naive statement? I don't think it is ... It is the reality of what we face.

"If somebody can show me any terrorism campaign where it has been policed out, I'd be happy to read about it, because I can't think of one."

In the interview Orde gave his personal blueprint for policing in which he: