U.S. to withdraw from tsunami relief operations

1/15/2005 1:20:00 PM GMT

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Saturday that the United States is seeking to scale down its relief operations in Asian tsunami-stricken nations, and hand the tasks over to local authorities.

Speaking to reporters in Bangkok before flying to Thailand, Wolfowitz said "we'd like to be out of this business as soon as we responsibly can".

"The U.S. military has a lot of other work to do," he added.

"As soon as our military folks can pass these responsibilities on to other organizations, well, we will," he said, however, he didn’t give a specific a time frame.

Wolfowitz hailed the world efforts in trying to ease the sufferings of the tsunami hit countries in South Asia.

He added that the U.S. was eager to begin a transitional phase that could see it hand much of its work over to governments, non-governmental organisations and aid agencies.

"My sense is already their role in Thailand is leveling off if not decreasing," he said of the U.S. military.

On Thursday, and before he starts his trip, Wolfowitz told reporters that he wishes the U.S. troops would finish their task in three months.

In Bangkok, deputy to U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld held talks with Thai Defense Minister Sumpan Boonyanun before visiting Utapao air base and then flying to Indonesia.

According to officials at the U.S. embassy in Thailand, Rumsfeld had plans to visit Indonesia’s hit Aceh province, the worst tsunami-hit region where most of the 163,000 people died in the disaster.

Lasts week, Indonesia asked all foreign troops conducting relief operations to quit the country in three months time.

After asking Indonesia for clarification over its request, U.S. State Department said that Indonesia’s Vice President Yusuf Kalla said that no specific time frame would be imposed on foreign troops and that three months was only ‘an estimate’.

Wolfowitz said he felt Jakarta was not setting deadlines so much as "setting goals and expressing their own desire to take a responsibility in their own country as quickly as possible."

"We applaud that," he said.

“I hope that our Indonesian friends and colleagues will accept it is the needs of the population that will decide when military assets should be phased out completely,'' UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said in comments posted on the body's website.

“There will be many more weeks for a very substantive military presence.''

Since the massive Tsunami hit South Asia on Dec. 26 last year, troops from all the world, including Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, France and the United States, were sent to the stricken areas to conduct relief operations.

According to Vice Admiral Victor Guillory, deputy commander of the U.S. military's relief operations, there are 15,000 U.S. military personnel in the region taking part in relief efforts.

Of the 350 million U.S. pledged aid to the Asia’s devastated nations, the U.S. has committed at 92 million dollars, a U.S. Agency for International Development official said.

At least 170,000 people were killed and millions were made homeless in 11 South Asian countries that were hit by the merciless tsunami and magnitude-9 earthquake last month.