Reuters/Cairo
Hillary Clinton
Bahrain and its allies who have sent troops to help it put down anti-government demonstrations are on the wrong track, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a television interview yesterday.
“We find what’s happening in Bahrain alarming. We think that there is no security answer to the aspirations and demands of the demonstrators,” Clinton told CBS in an interview, urging Bahrain to negotiate a political agreement with demonstrators.
“We have also made that very clear to our Gulf partners who are part of the Gulf Co-operation Council, four of whose members have sent troops to support the Bahraini government. They are on the wrong track,” Clinton added according to a US pool reporter who attended the interview.
Earlier, the United States objected to what it called “excessive force and violence” used against protesters in Bahrain and said it had communicated its concerns directly to Bahrain’s government. “We object to excessive force and violence against demonstrators; we raised our concerns directly today to Bahrain,” the State Department said in a message on Twitter.
“We continue to believe the solution is credible political reform, not security crackdowns that threaten to exacerbate the situation,” the State Department said in additional Twitter messages, originally released in Arabic.
“Despite rumours to the contrary, we have been clear in public and private that the US supports peaceful political process that meets aspirations of all Bahrainis.”
The United States has called for restraint by the kingdom which this week sought GCC security reinforcements.