Current Projects
China Urges Parties in Iran Deal to Stick To Pact As Trump Presidency Approaches
The implementation of the Iran nuclear deal should not be affected by any changes in the domestic situations of countries involved in the agreement, China's foreign minister said. The comment comes days after the US Senate voted to renew sanctions against Iran. "Maintaining the deal's continued, comprehensive and effective implementation is the responsibility and common interest of all parties, and should not be impacted by changes in the internal situation of each country," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at a press conference following a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday. "What is important is to honor commitments and place an emphasis on good faith when it comes to differences or possible differences" over the deal, he said, as cited by AFP. Zarif later said that Iran’s nuclear deal “is a multilateral agreement and all parties should respect it. Iran and China have the same stance on this,” Reuters reported, citing Iran's Tasnim news agency. "We will not let any country infringe the agreement unilaterally," he added. "But if they do, Iran has its own options." His comments come after the US Senate voting unanimously last week to renew the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for another decade. It has been described as a symbolic move, but it allows the president to impose new restrictions on Tehran if it violates the 2015 nuclear accord. In November, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei warned the American government that if it renews sanctions over his country’s nuclear program for another 10 years, there will be consequences. “The current government of the United States has breached the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] on multiple occasions; the most recent being a 10-year extension of existing sanctions,” he said in a speech reprinted on his official website. “If these sanctions are put into place, the JCPOA has certainly been breached and they [the USA] should be aware that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not...
Afghanistan: Survey Finds Levels of Fear at Their Highest
Findings of Asia Foundation's 12th annual Survey of the Afghan People were released Wednesday in Kabul and found the downward trajectory in national mood, which began in 2013, has continued: in 2016, just 29.3 percent of Afghans say the country is moving in the right direction, the lowest level of optimism recorded in the Survey since it began in 2004, and down from 36.7 percent in 2015. While the drop in 2015 can be partly explained by post-election disappointments after the exuberance and campaign promises preceding the 2014 presidential elections, the lower optimism in 2016 appears to reflect a sustained change in sentiment related to perceptions of security, the economy, and government achievements, their report stated. Afghans appear to have less confidence in every level of government, yet they also have less desire to emigrate. This year's survey polled 12,658 Afghan respondents, 52.7 percent of them male and 47.4 percent female, representing 16 ethnic groups from all 34 provinces in the country. The report stated that the marked rise in civilian casualties and worsening violence has contributed to the highest recorded level of fear in over a decade. It states that Afghans in 2016 are more fearful for their security, more dissatisfied with the economy, and less confident in their government. "The national mood continued to decline, and this year marks the lowest level of optimism since the survey began in 2004," it stated. More than one-third of Afghans say their household financial situation has grown worse in the past year and most Afghans say they have no confidence in the Independent Elections Commission. "Confidence in every level of government appears to have fallen since 2015," the report stated. But this year's survey also provides some reasons for optimism. It stated that "despite the worsening economic and security environment, the desire to emigrate fell to a record low this year, a striking change from 2015, as large numbers of previous...
Sabawoon Showcase: Status of Polio Infected Persons and Government’s Plans to Erdicate Polio Virus
The latest episode of Sabawoon, flagship radio program of Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), focused on the status of people infected with polio in Khyber Pahtunkhwa (KP) and KP government’s plans to control and get rid of the polio virus in the region. The key points of discussion included an overview of the current scenario of polio infected persons in KP, infection of children by polio virus, transmission of this virus from infected people, polluted environment helping spread of the virus, polio vaccination campaigns, techniques to control polio, hygiene issues giving birth to polio viruses, and refusal of polio vaccination by families in KP. Furthermore, the program discussed the plans of government and international organizations to annihilate the polio problem in the region. The program was aired under the theme “Jarga Marrakka” (debate and council) on Monday. Dr. Akram Khan, Assistant Director of Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) Program, Peshawar(KP), participated as the studio guest in the show. A radio report, based on the aforementioned theme of the show was made part of the program. The report shed light on prevailing situation regarding the polio vaccination in district Kohat and the hurdles faced by the polio teams in promoting their campaign. The report stated that the KP province tops Pakistan with a total number of 18 polio cases in the year 2016. Lack of awareness among public is the major reason behind this fact. Approximately, 30,000 familes in KP (including 2,000 families in Kohat) refused to vaccinate their children against polio virus. The government has been taking action against the families who have refused the vaccination to their children and is implementing Section 3MPA as a punishment of refusal. 2016 was counted as the year to eliminate polio from Pakistan. However, Pakistan (as well as Afghanistan) is still polio endemic country. Live Callers on the Show: Two callers took part in the show live and urged the...
Heart of Asia Realignments: India-Afghanistan In Open Courtship As Russia Falls By Wayside
In diplomacy, the subtext is often as important as the text. As the sixth edition of the annual Heart of Asia Conference came to a close on Sunday, between the comments and declarations, the narrative and the counter-narrative, lay the contours of a new, deviatory foreign policy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A nation's strategic affairs are usually the result of well-curated gradualism. Major shifts are rare unless there is a confluence of circumstances and a strong leadership willing to shake off hesitations of history. At the end of the two-day summit, it does appear that India is on the cusp of a bold revision. Two things are immediately clear. One, India is no longer coy about its relationship with Afghanistan and sees the Central Asian nation as an important pivot. Two, it is fast recalibrating its historic ties with Russia. We are still a long way away from hearing the last word of an enduring strategic partnership but New Delhi is close to accepting (after staying in long denial) that the Cold War-era bonhomie with Moscow is over. Indo-Russian ties, too, have fallen prey to the sweeping currents of realignment triggered by the end of American exceptionalism and the simultaneous rise of China. Though major regional and global players met in Amritsar ostensibly to guide Afghanistan through its political and economic transition, in reality Heart of Asia platform was reduced to staging just another boxing bout between India, Pakistan and Afghanistan with Russia trying to play the referee and media in Islamabad and New Delhi in breathless anticipation for resumption of talks. As if that would serve any purpose. The way the pugilists threw their punches, it became abundantly clear that Kabul and New Delhi now see no point in downplaying the convergence of their strategic and commercial interests. In setting diplomatic niceties aside and blasting Pakistan's complicity in sponsoring terror within its borders and inflicting an "undeclared war", Afghanistan...
Ghani’s Still Pakistan’s Best Bet
‘Afghanistan is more than the “graveyard of empires.”’ Maureen Dowd once said, ‘It’s the mother of vicious circles.’ While Ms Dowd fails to point out her country’s complicity in said circles, her words ring true: ever since the other Dowd — the Russians’ sacrificial lamb Daud Khan — Afghanistan has only seen war. Yet even by Afghan standards, Ashraf Ghani just can’t catch a break. The presidency has long been the most thankless job in the world, but today’s odds are without end. With those in mind, perhaps, did Mr Ghani lambast Pakistan at the Heart of Asia Conference. Islamabad would do better, he said, to spend our development aid on fighting terror instead. And though Pakistan’s pundits were quick to whale back at an ‘ingrate’ and ‘incompetent’, it may be best to breathe. Before we bash the man, let’s take a trip in his shoes. To start with, the Taliban are in ascent everywhere, having snatched up around 40 percent of the country, more territory than at any other time in the war. Much of the Pakistani Taliban too — squashed by Zarb-e-Azb back home — are regrouping as ISIS, and turning on Kabul. Then there’s all the rest of them: around a fifth of the world’s terror orgs have lain down roots in Afghanistan, says the US’s General Nicholson (another ironic source). Speaking of the Americans, the US is mentally making for the door. Before he backtracked, then went back on the backtracking, Donald Trump summed it up thus: ‘(…) it’s a mess. It’s a mess. And at this point, you probably have to (stay) because that thing will collapse about two seconds after they leave.’ Yes, ‘that thing’ again: in its grand tradition of taking Afghanistan apart and leaving, Mr. Trump echoes another Republican hero, George H W Bush. With the Kremlin gone (but Kabul ablaze), Mr. Bush reportedly asked his cabinet, ‘Is “that thing” still going on?’ As we ready ourselves for more of that thing, we get to everything else: the Afghan National Army’s attrition rate is among the highest in the...
Afghanistan Will Be the Trump Administration’s First Foreign Policy Crisis
Many hotspots and geopolitical adversaries are constantly in the news and likely at the forefront of the foreign policy issues President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is focused on. Yet the issue that is most likely to be the first real foreign policy crisis of the Trump administration is the one that received no discussion at all during the presidential debates – Afghanistan. Remember Afghanistan? The longest war in U.S. history? Where the United States, its allies in NATO, and several partner nations still have in excess of 13,000 troops on the ground? Where the United States last year spent approximately $3.6 billion on security force assistance alone? Where the United States has been dropping ever-larger numbers of bombs since President Obama gave U.S. forces more expansive authorities to achieve so-called “strategic effects?” As was the case when Barack Obama took office in 2009, Afghanistan is again the “forgotten war,” taking the backseat to a war in Iraq. And just as President Obama inherited a war trending in the wrong direction, so too will President Trump. Today, Afghanistan’s economy is in decline, with its gross domestic product (GDP) having decreased each of the past three years. The country’s government is in a state of routine chaos, with the parliament having just dismissed seven government ministers and the first vice president having just publically beaten and kidnapped a political rival. The security situation is no better. The commander of U.S. Central Command recently cited district control statisticsthat suggest 60 percent of Afghanistan’s population live in districts under the government’s control or influence, while about 10 percent live in districts under insurgent control (the rest of the population lives in areas that are contested). Yet these categorizations have been called into question – and anyway, they miss the point of the Taliban-led insurgency’s strategy and operational design, which is to first capture sparsely...
Youth Alone Can Sway the Hope
In the past 35-year-old war, the largest victims who were killed, maimed or traumatized in Afghanistan are mostly young people. Yet, the Afghanistan’s population remains the world’s youngest and fastest growing. Half of them are under eighteen. The Afghan Central Statistics Organization in 2014 disclosed that almost 47 percent of the country’s 27.1 million people were under fifteen and 37 percent between fifteen and thirty-nine. Combined, 84 percent were under forty. The ubiquitous violence of the past and present scar their memories. But to insist that they do not understand the political causes of the war and thus are unable to break free of prejudices is not reflective of the reality discernible at least among university going students in Kabul and Mizar-e- Sharif. The instability spiral in Afghanistan has failed to undermine their resilience to rebuild their war-ravaged country. In fact, the Afghan universities are preparing the youth to be a political factor in new Afghanistan. Youths are seen holding responsible positions in government as well as parliament. The pace of change is slow but there is no slackening of efforts despite the shrinking labor market for almost 400,000 new job seekers each year. Since 2008, Afghanistan’s nation-wide literacy rate has increased by 5%; since 2005, the youth literacy rate has increased by more than 16%. According to the Afghan Central Statistics Organization, public university enrollment has increased from 7,800 in 2001 to 174,425 in 2015, 21% of which are women, and demand for higher education continues to grow. The Afghan civil society has, of late, started engaging these educated young people as part of their consultation with government, religious leaders, international community to effectively contribute to the decision making processes and promote solidarity and unity between people from different communities to national level. Some such initiatives even go beyond local politics, out-reaching neighboring...
Indian Jingoism
The Indo-Pak relationship touched a new low with the inflammatory and accusatory statements by the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. In its frustration over the futility of its efforts to “isolate” Pakistan, the Modi administration stooped to new levels by deviations from the diplomatic protocols to embarrass the Pakistani delegation led by Sartaj Aziz. Probably much more frustrating for both India and Afghanistan was the expression of support for Pakistan by the Iranian, Chinese and Russian delegates. This reminds one of a line from an epic play by great German philosopher and poet Friedrich Schiller. “He can humiliate me but cannot bend me,” says the orphaned princess of the rough treatment she gets from the new king. Will the Indian belittling attitude force Pakistan into submission? Some geo-political facts point to the contrary. Following its failure to use Russia and China against Pakistan during the BRICS summit at Goa a few weeks ago, the Russian envoy Zamir Kabulov punctured the Indian narrative on terrorism even at the Heart of Asia conference on December 4 at Amritsar. The Heart of Asia conference should not be used by India and Pakistan for scoring points. All the major players to extend all possible support to Afghanistan in its transition, Kabulov said. “India has close cooperation with the US, does Moscow complain? Then why complain about much lower level of cooperation with Pakistan,” he asked when referred to the Russia-Pakistan military exercise. Equally disturbing perhaps was the Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s offer to help diffuse Pakistan India tensions. “If Iran can be of any help to any of them, we stand ready because these two neighbours are extremely important to us,” Zareef underscored. To the utter Indo-Afghan dismay the Chinese delegates called Pakistan as “inseparable for the peace efforts in Afghanistan.” It was this synchronisation of approach that resulted in a unanimous declaration,...
Kabul, Taliban Likely to Restart Peace Talks
Diplomatic efforts are under way amidst strong indications of imminent start of peace negotiations between Kabul and the Afghan Taliban, The Express Tribune has learnt. Acting US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Laura Miller has also arrived in Islamabad and diplomatic sources are linking her visit to the move. Miller met Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Omar Zakhilwal and “discussed various issues,” the ambassador said on his official Twitter account. The US Ambassador in Islamabad David Hale and Military Deputy to the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Major General Judd H Lyons were also present in the meeting. The US delegation arrived in Islamabad days after they met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul and discussed the situation in the region, Afghanistan and Pakistan ties and Miller’s work in this regard, Ghani’s office said. The US envoy is visiting Pakistan at a time when a senior Taliban representative in Qatar political office told The Express Tribune in a recent interview that the Taliban leaders are “involved in internal discussions” to chalk out a strategy for possible political negotiations. The diplomatic efforts have been intensified weeks after the Taliban political representatives wrapped up a visit to Pakistan in October. Pakistan and Taliban had confirmed the visit but avoided giving any details. Some sources said Pakistan had “encouraged the Taliban negotiators to join the peace talks” like Hizb-e-Islami, which struck a peace deal with the Kabul administration in late September. Adviser to the PM on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz reiterated Pakistan’s support for the Hizb-Afghan govt agreement in his address at the Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar on Sunday. The Amritsar Declaration also “commended the government of Afghanistan in successfully pursuing peace talks with Hizb-e-Islami Gulbuddin Hekmatyar resulting in the signature of a peace agreement that sets a good precedent for future peace talks...
Pak-Afghan Ties
AFGHAN President Ashraf Ghani has become a harsh critic of Pakistan — harsh to the point of outdoing Indian hawks and, seemingly, undermining his own country’s interests. At the Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar, where the theme was cooperation against security threats, Mr Ghani’s rhetoric was aggressive, almost as if Kabul desired a rupture in Pak-Afghan ties. This is not the right attitude and it is hoped that better sense will prevail. Certainly, there is some history here. When Mr Ghani assumed office more than two years ago, he made it a priority to reach out to Pakistan through some bold verbal statements and diplomatic gestures towards Islamabad and Rawalpindi; it indicated that resetting ties with Pakistan were a core part of his agenda. The outreach was received warmly by both the political government and the military leadership here, but Mr Ghani soon became impatient with what was perceived in Afghanistan as Pakistan’s slow pace in addressing his country’s concerns. Yet, Pakistan, too, has had genuine concerns vis-à-vis Afghanistan. As Mr Ghani and the National Unity Government he heads became increasingly hawkish on Pakistan, they deliberately steered closer to India — a growing closeness that the security establishment here saw as one of the reasons behind the renewed security troubles in Balochistan. Moreover, with counter-insurgency operations in North Waziristan and other parts of Fata nearing their final stages, the problem of sanctuaries for anti-Pakistan militants in Afghanistan, particularly in the eastern region, has become a thorny issue. The combination of Afghan and Pakistani grievances against one another has led to a relationship that is now in a shockingly poor state. Still, there are compelling reasons for both sides to move the bilateral relationship back towards cooperation, and Mr Ghani surely knows this, even if he prefers to give voice to a one-sided interpretation of events at the moment. There are at least three areas in which...
TOP STORIES
TESTIMONIALS
“
I am also a member of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting. Recently, we held a meeting with the Director General of Radio Pakistan and we told them to initiate such local programs (like Constituency Hour) in regional languages to educate and inform people. Even Indian Radio can be heard in FATA which is being used for propaganda purposes and must be closed. Therefore, we should launch some standard and quality programs like CRSS that will change the taste of the listeners.