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In the aftermath of the U.S. recognition of unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo Albanians and subsequent violence targeting the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, Undersecretary for Political Affairs in the State Department Nicholas Burns said had Serbia had a “fundamental responsibility” to protect U.S. diplomats and citizens, adding that Washington would hold Serbian Prime Minister (PM) Vojislav Kostunica and his government “personally responsible” for assaults on U.S. interests. He went on “What happened yesterday in Belgrade was absolutely reprehensible. This kind of thing should not happen in a civilized country.” He had even the audacity to call Russia’s policy cynical....

R. Nicholas Burns, long one of the most high-profile diplomats at the State Department, is resigning. This is a very good thing. On October 17th, Undersecretary of State Burns addressed The American Task Force on Palestine and stressed the US interest in a Palestinian State. Reading Burns's speech is frightening considering his position and influence in the Bush Administration. He speaks in/of a sort of parallel universe devoid of Islamic jihad, endless carnage, homicide bombings, while daily, rockets fired into Southern Israel as if it all a rumor and never happened. In Burns's world, the State Department's capitulating monkeys are...

Reading Nicholas Burns speech is like entering the twilight zone. A handmaiden for Islamazis, he is delivering America into the claws of Islamic jihad. Worse still, he has a svengalian influence over Condhimmi. If you have trouble reading or understanding this, merely pretend it is 1942 and substitute Nazi Germany for Palestinian state. That should do it. Burns is just another State Dept Arab loving hack with, we now discover, a Palestinian-Arab in his family. Any wonder why and where his misguided sympathies are? The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) held its second annual gala Oct. 17 at the...

A senior U.S. official said on Thursday Russia and China had been blocking tough U.N. sanctions against Iran for months but there would be a push to impose them if Tehran had not suspended nuclear activity within two weeks. Nicholas Burns, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, was speaking before talks with the U.N. nuclear watchdog chief to check whether Iran was honoring an August deal to clarify past secret aspects of its nuclear program.

PARIS (AFP) — A top US diplomat said Wednesday he regretted the French-bashing that took place in the United States over France's refusal to join the US-led war in Iraq. Nicholas Burns, number three in the US State Department, called a decision to rename French fries as freedom fries in the US Congress foolish and he welcomed a new closeness between France and the United States. "I surely hope that those Americans who renamed French fries into freedom fries, and those Americans who poured perfectly good French wines down American drains, I hope that they realise what foolishness that was,"...

Burns: We have to confront Iran By HAVIV RETTIG Jan. 21, 2007 Iran must be confronted, the No. 2 official in the State Department said at the Herzliya Conference on Sunday, shortly after a five-hour meeting with Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, in charge of Israel's strategic dialogue with the US. US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said, "We have to confront Iran." Iran, Burns said on the first day of the conference, "is our most important challenge, a country with a radical agenda, a president that asserts that the Holocaust did not occur." Live video feed from...

US diplomat calls for Iran action Iran insists that it nuclear programme aims to provide energy A senior US diplomat has hit out at Iran and called on members of the UN Security Council to agree on economic sanctions against Tehran.At a summit in Brussels, Nicholas Burns called Iran "the major disruptive, negative force in the Middle East". The five permanent Security Council members plus Germany are to meet on Tuesday to discuss a sanctions package. The council recommended sanctions after Iran failed to comply with a deadline for refusing to end uranium enrichment. However, France indicated that the...

US, India forging global partnership: Burns Arun Kumar (IANS) Washington, November 29, 2006 The United States and India are forging a "natural global partnership" economically, militarily and culturally in one of the most significant shifts in US global policy in a decade, says a senior US official. While the US-India civil nuclear accord has received the most public attention, there is actually an "ambitious agenda" of cooperative efforts under way through official government channels, private businesses and non-profit organisations, said Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R Nicholas Burns. In a speech to the Asia Society in New York...

Whatever else you might think about the war in Iraq, the fact is that the Iraqis have stopped supporting Islamic terrorism outside their borders and no longer pose a threat of using or supplying WMD to these monsters. Al Qaeda violence in Iraq has been quelled, and the problem there has shifted to the traditional enmity between Shi’as and Sunnis that has led to extreme violence in the presence of a weak government and our reluctance to use overwhelming force. The scene has now shifted to Iran, where major Islamic terrorism against America started in 1979, and where, fortunately, we...

Bush White House won't cite evidence of Iran backing for Hizbullah The Bush administration appears to be playing down the significant role played by Iran in supplying arms and other support to Hizbullah in Lebanon, apparently a result of the dominance of diplomats in the corridors of power. Nicholas Burns, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, is said to be the leading soft-line official within the administration who favors the current policy of avoiding a major expose of Teheran's involvement in the Lebanon fighting. Burns’ power is said to be increasing under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who, like her...

Weekend Preview AnalysisNo one has complained about the format, so I'm sticking with it.Of the Sunday shows I'm most interested in ... well, frankly, none of them.  I want to hear what the various Israeli diplomats have to say, but I've been hearing the genocidal rants of the Jihadi's for most of my 51 years of life, so I'm really bored with why their reasons why they are entitled to commit genocide against the Jews and to enslave everyone else, including me an my children.Bremer is trying to cover his butt for all of the screw ups he made while...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan's president told a senior U.S. official on Saturday that the airstrike on a Pakistani village last week cannot be repeated, a foreign ministry official said. Gen. Pervez Musharraf also assured U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns Pakistan would not waver in its support for Washington's war on terrorism, the foreign ministry official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. The comments were the first publicized reaction by Musharraf to the Jan. 13 attack on the village of Damadola that apparently targeted but missed Ayman al-Zawahi, al-Qaida's No. 2....

The United States, EU, Russia and China met Monday to discuss Iran's nuclear program, with Washington and the European Union pushing to bring the Islamic state before the U.N. Security Council. Iran's decision to restart its nuclear program alarmed the West, which fears the regime intends to build an atomic bomb. Iran, which insists it only wants to produce electricity, has threatened to end cooperation the U.N. nuclear watchdog if it is brought before the Security Council. On Monday, Iran's state-run radio reported that the country has allocated the equivalent of $215 million for the construction of what would be...

Condi defers to Burns, but undersecretary does not share Bush's worldview Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, a State Department Arabist and a critic of Israel, has emerged as the leading foreign policy official in the Bush administration. Mr. Burns has by default become the most powerful figure in the State Department and responsible for day-to-day management of U.S. foreign policy. Officials said Mr. Burns was authorized by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in late 2005 to become the leading foreign policy administrator amid a sharp decline in support for President Bush. "Nick Burns has everything Condi doesn't have—a firm sense...

A story circulating in Washington, perhaps apocryphal, has it that late one evening during last year's annual Munich Conference on Security Policy, after the day's discussions were finished and a few drinks had been downed, Richard Holbrooke began a sentence by saying, "When John Kerry is president and I'm secretary of state and Nicholas Burns here is undersecretary of state for political affairs ..." Mr. Kerry went on to lose the election… ‘snip’ Mr. Holbrooke had written a glowing report in the Washington Post predicting that Mr. Burns would be in the new State Department team, which he described as...

John Bolton, the State Department's top international security official, will leave the post in the second Bush administration and be replaced by an arms control specialist at the National Security Council, a senior U.S. official said Friday. Bolton, who promoted programs to slow the spread of sophisticated weapons technology around the world, has served as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security in the four years of the first Bush administration. Meanwhile, an administration official said that Nicholas Burns, U.S. ambassador to NATO, is slated for the State Department's third-ranking position, under secretary for political affairs. Burns, a...

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari appealed Tuesday for NATO to quickly begin its promised mission to train his country's armed forces and provide assistance including military hardware. "We need this training ... to be carried out as soon as possible," Zebari told reporters at NATO headquarters. "We are in a race against time — it's a matter of urgency." NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the 26 allies would decide this month on launching the training mission. He said the alliance would also consider Zebari's requests for military equipment, help guarding Iraq's borders and protection...