Only a sincere US can fight terrorism

In an important move, President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Barack Obama denounced all forms of terrorism during their talks on Wednesday, and pledged to fight them together in the spirit of the Charter of the United Nations and international norms.

International efforts to curb terrorism date back to the 1960s. The UN took the first concrete step in this regard in 1972 when it set up a special committee to deal with the problem, and the next year, the UN General Assembly passed a series of resolutions against terrorism. The fight against terrorism gained pace after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks as the US and its Western allies launched an all-out war against terrorists.

Yet 13 years later terrorism poses an even bigger threat to global peace, and the emergence of the Islamic State, which is wreaking havoc in Iraq and Syria, is testimony to the failure of the US anti-terrorism policy.