QUEBEC CITY -- President Bush said on Sunday the United States was
committed to supporting Colombia in its war on drugs but said it was up to
President Andres Pastrana to make peace with rebels who are financed by the
narcotics trade.

Bush was one of the leaders of 34 nations, gathered in Quebec for the
Summit of the Americas, who voiced their support for Colombia's peace
process and the war-torn Andean nation's efforts to haul itself from its
current spiral of violence.

The leaders issued a statement after the three-day summit, pledging their
``firm support'' for Pastrana's efforts to negotiate a peaceful end to a
37-year-old war that has claimed 35,000 -- mainly civilian -- lives in the
past decade alone.

"We express our confidence that the dialogue and the political negotiations
... will lead to a stable, just, firm and lasting peace, putting an end to
the violence and human suffering caused by the conflict," the statement said.

Bush underlined U.S. backing at a news conference at the close of the
summit, saying, "Our country is committed to the region. I believe firmly
that President Pastrana is a strong leader who is doing everything he can
to bring the peace," "But it's going to be up to President Pastrana to make
the peace," he said. "Once he does so, we'll stand by his side."

Earlier this year, the United States rejected a Colombian request to
reconsider the American policy of not talking with Marxist rebels in
Colombia in order to help advance the sputtering peace negotiations.

The U.S. government, which held tentative talks with the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 1998, has refused to renew ties with the
rebels until they account for three Americans who were killed in 1999 in
Colombia.

U.S. Helping Other Andean Nations

Bush noted the United States approved almost $1.3 billion in mostly
military aid last year, for Pastrana's "Plan Colombia," a $7.5 billion
program running parallel to peace talks to destroy coca fields in the
world's largest cocaine producer.

"We have funded Plan Colombia, which is over $1 billion of U.S. taxpayers'
money. That's a very strong commitment," he said.

Critics of the U.S. aid, which includes the delivery of 14 Black Hawk
helicopters to deploy Colombian drug battalions, say it could end up
dragging the United States into a war.

Pastrana thanked the United States for its support, but said the most vital
assistance it needed was in trade. "More than money, we're asking commerce
- -- that's where we were asking the United States, that's where we were
asking Europe," Pastrana said.