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China Aims To Thaw Frosty India, Pakistan Ties
A senior official of China’s foreign ministry voiced hope on Tuesday that tensions between Pakistan and India will defuse after the upcoming summit of five emerging economic powers in a western Indian state later this month. China’s President Xi Jinping will travel to Goa to attend the 8th summit of BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — which will be held on October 15 and 16. The Chinese leader would also meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “China is concerned at rising tensions between Pakistan and India over the Kashmir issue,” Xiao Qian of the Department of Asian Affairs told a group of senior Pakistani journalists in Beijing on Tuesday. “China will try to normalise strained relations between Pakistan and India,” he added. He said the two countries should resolve the festering dispute through dialogue. “China appreciates Pakistan’s commitment to dialogue with India.” Tensions have been running high between Pakistan and India since the Sept 18 deadly attack on an Indian military base in Uri, in the disputed Himalayan state. New Delhi whipped up war hysteria, especially after conducting self-styled surgical strikes in the Pakistani side of Kashmir — a claim strongly denied by Islamabad. “Pakistan and India should shun the talk of war,” Xiao said. However, he reiterated his country’s assurance that it would stand by Pakistan in every situation. He admitted that durable normalisation might not be possible without resolving the festering dispute which Pakistan describes as the real bone of contention with India. On the Afghan peace process, the Chinese official said that Beijing tried to facilitate talks between the Taliban and the Kabul administration — but the process was suspended following the killing of Taliban supremo Mullah Akhtar Mansoor. Mansoor was killed in a US drone strike in Balochistan while he was returning from neighbouring Iran on May 21, 2016. China was part of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group that also involved...
The Taleban Assault on Kunduz city: Déjà vu, but why?
A little over a year after the temporary fall of Kunduz city to the Taleban, the city has become a battleground again. On 3 October 2016, the Taleban entered during a massive assault from three directions. Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), supported by US forces and air power, are battling to recapture the areas they lost, with territory still changing hands. The attack was very similar in tactics to the one last year and was largely staged from the very same areas – despite reassurances by the government that the situation was in hand and despite the many ANSF ‘clearing operations’ (that indeed failed to clear these areas). AAN’s Obaid Ali explains the persistent vulnerabilities that brought the city very close to being overrun by the Taleban for a second time. The Taleban attack Kunduz city again On 3 October 2016, the Taleban started their assault on Kunduz city – a little over a year after the city fell in September 2015. The assault was staged from three directions. The first attack started in the early morning, around 4:00 am, from the western areas of Zakhel, Khakani, Bagh-e Sherkat, Kota-ye Gert and Qahwa Khana. These areas are located in the city’s first police district and are only a few kilometers away from the city’s symbolic heart: its main square where several government buildings are located. Insurgents from Chahrdara, the district flanking Kunduz city to the west and southwest, supplied fighters for this front. Chahrdara has been one of the Taleban’s strongholds for the past few years and played a crucial role in last year’s attack on the city. Once Kunduz city’s security cordon had been breached on this side, the Taleban overran the first police district’s head quarters which is located around two kilometers northwest of Kunduz main square, and started moving towards the city’s centre. The second assault followed shortly after from the east of the city, from an area known as Charkh Ab, which it is around two kilometers away from the main...
Three Afghan Taliban Leaders Arrested
Three key members of the Afghan Taliban, including Ahmadullah Muti alias Mullah Nanai who served as intelligence chief under Mullah Akhtar Mansoor have been arrested, two Taliban leaders confirmed to The Express Tribune late Tuesday. The Taliban leaders said Nanai was picked up three days ago from Balochistan. Suleman Agha, the Taliban governor for Daykund province, and Mullah Sani, also known as Samad Sani, chief of a religious school and a well-known trader, who have links with the Taliban, have also been taken into custody, they added on the condition of anonymity. There was no official word on the arrests. However, some sources have confided to The Express Tribune that the arrests have been made after the Taliban had ‘refused’ to start peace talks with the government. A Taliban source said at least eight Taliban leaders have been arrested from different parts of Balochistan in recent days. “Several senior leaders, including Amir Khan Muttaqi, former information minister during the Taliban rule, have gone into hiding,” he said. Mullah Nanai, some Taliban sources say, was recently appointed as the Taliban Chief Justice by Maulvi Haibatullah. He was one of the few top Taliban leaders who had been involved in wooing dissident Taliban leaders to declare support for Akhtar Mansour. The arrests have been made at a time when the Taliban have intensified attacks in parts of Afghanistan. A credible source close to the Taliban said the “Pakistani crackdown” is linked to the Taliban’s refusal to come to the negotiating table”. He said Pakistan had recently “approached” the Taliban and asked them to join the peace process. However, they reiterated their stance to not talk to the government. This article originally appeared in The Express Tribune, October 12, 2016. Original link. Disclaimer: Views expressed in the article are not necessarily supported by CRSS.
‘Irrational’ Border Closure A Setback To Pak-India Ties: Chinese Analysts
India's decision to completely close its border with Pakistan is 'irrational' and may lead to a major setback in bilateral relations analysts say, Chinese daily Global Timesreported on Tuesday. Citing Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh's earlier statement that the border between Pakistan and India would be completely sealed by December 2018, the Global Times quoted several analysts who opposed the move due to a variety of reasons. 'Irrational decision' "India is making a very irrational decision, since no exhaustive investigation has been conducted after the Uri incident, and no evidence proves Pakistan is behind the attack," Hu Zhiyong, a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times. Hu said that a "completely sealed" border would further hinder the already scarce border trade and talks between the two countries. 'Move complicates China-Pak-India ties' The Times also quoted Wang Dehua, director of the Institute for Southern and Central Asian Studies at the Shanghai Municipal Center for International Studies, as saying that the sealed border would only disrupt peace efforts made by the two sides. "The country's decision reflects its Cold War mentality, and will only cause deeper hatred among residents living in Indian- and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir," said Hu. "Since Pakistan is China's all-weather strategic partner, India's decision would make China-Pakistan-India relations more complicated." "A peaceful resolution on the Kashmir disputes is in the interest of China's homeland security, especially its western regions," he said. India's new border Rajnath's announcement came amid escalated tensions between Pakistan and India in the wake of repeated ceasefire violations and Indian claims of a 'surgical strike' in Azad Jammu and Kashmir ─ a claim rejected by Pakistan. The Indian home minister had said of the border: “It is a new concept. We will be framing guidelines after getting...
China Expresses Concern about Indian Missiles on Border
China's Defence Ministry said on Thursday that it hoped India could put more efforts into regional peace and stability rather than the opposite, in response to Indian plans to put advanced cruise missiles along the disputed border with China. Indian military officials say the plan is to equip regiments deployed on the China border with the BrahMos missile, made by an Indo-Russian joint venture, as part of ongoing efforts to build up military and civilian infrastructure capabilities there. The two nuclear-armed neighbours have been moving to gradually ease long-existing tensions between them. Leaders of Asia's two giants pledged last year to cool a festering border dispute, which dates back to a brief border war in 1962, though the disagreement remains unresolved. Asked about the missile plans at a monthly news briefing, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said maintaining peace and stability in the border region was an “important consensus” reached by both countries. "We hope that the Indian side can do more to benefit peace and stability along the border and in the region, rather than the opposite," Wu said, without elaborating. China lays claim to more than 90,000 sq km ruled by New Delhi in the eastern sector of the Himalayas. India says China occupies 38,000 sq km of its territory on the Aksai Chin plateau in the west. India is also suspicious of China's support for Pakistan. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping when he visits China next month to attend the G20 summit. Modi's government has ordered BrahMos Aerospace, which produces the missiles, to accelerate sales to a list of five countries topped by Vietnam, according to a government note viewed by Reuters and previously unreported. Modi visits Vietnam, which is embroiled in a dispute over the South China Sea with Beijing, before arriving in China. This article originally appeared in The Dawn News . Original link. Disclaimer: Views expressed in the article are...
Boycotting Saarc Summit Vs Sri Lanka’s Foreign Policy
Renowned diplomats believe that Sri Lanka should remain committed to the sustenance and strengthening of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). They say the government’s decision to withdraw from the SAARC summit in Pakistan, against the backdrop of some tensions between India and Pakistan, will not go well for the country or the regional bloc. Some experts say the principle should be that the collective interests of the SAARC region should be always upheld. This principle should in no way be compromised. While in India last week, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had said that the failure of the regional grouping to deliver “acceptable results” for all members would spell a “bleak future” and compel his country to find other “viable options”. According to the Indian media, Wickremesinghe’s remark assumed significance as Sri Lanka was one of the four SAARC member States which sided with India in pulling out of the summit scheduled in Islamabad on November 9-10 over an attack on an Indian army base in Uri on September 18 by Pakistan-based terrorists. .................................................................................................................................................................. Dr. Jehan Perera – Head, National Peace Council of Sri Lanka The government was being practical and pragmatic. Prior to Sri Lanka’s decision not to attend SAARC, four other countries had pulled out. This made attending SAARC meaningless as the basic purpose of this association is to promote goodwill and camaraderie amongst the neighbours. Besides, the SAARC rules say that all countries must attend if there is a summit. .................................................................................................................................................................. Ranga Pallawala – Chief Executive Officer, Janathakshan GTE Ltd. SAARC is the only South Asian regional platform, but it has very less enforcing power. Though...
Handling the Crouching Monster
A US-Afghan raid in the east Afghan province of Paktika has put down another terrorist wanted by Pakistan — Qari Ajmal — the mastermind of the March 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore. The Lashkar-e-Jhangi (LeJ) had taken refuge in Paktika following the assassination on November 1 , 2013 of Hakimullah Mehsud, the chief of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Before Ajmal, another TTP commander Azam Tariq and his son also had fallen to the US-Afghan forces in Paktika on September 25. Similarly, a US drone strike in eastern Nangarhar province had taken out Omar Mansoor alias Naray, the alleged mastermind of the Army Public School (APS) attack in December 2014. It is meanwhile clear that all those TTP terrorists had relocated from North Waziristan and Orakzai/Mohmand Agency to the greater Paktia region as well as Nangarhar following the launch of the Operation Zarb-e-Azb in June 2016. Hence, the drone-deaths in eastern Afghanistan of Shahidullah Shahid and Hafiz Saeed Khan, the so-called chief of Daesh Khorassan. Mullah Fazlullah, another instrument of instability, is also reportedly hiding somewhere in the eastern or northeastern mountains dividing Pakistan and Afghanistan and might soon suffer the same fate as did other TTP/Daesh leaders because he too lords over another anti-Pakistan terror group. Their elimination meant one worry less for Pakistan. Similarly, the US Pentagon droned Mullah Akhtar Mansour, the Afghan Taliban chief, to death in May this year because he was seen as a big impediment to the Afghan peace process. He was killed on the Pakistani territory because he represented a threat to both, the US and the Afghan government. If one were to go by this political construct, will the CIA venture to take out Hafiz Saeed of Lashkar-e-Taiba because he personifies horror and terror for India, the extremely valuable regional US ally? Given the ferocity of get-Hafiz-Saeed calls out of New Delhi, the USA and the common...
Pakistan and India – Lessons from China
In this media dominated age where hype and hysteria prevail, views of Pakistanis and Indians about each other and their respective worlds continue to collide. The propensity to assume the worst about each other and to wholly succumb to hyper nationalistic furies is a tragic flaw. In great measure, this stems from a psyche of fear and insecurity, which is evident in vociferous sentimentality. India's thought, conduct and policies often lack originality and a sense of ground reality. It often seems a bland imitation of the West, based on theories of geo-politics of a bygone age. Contrast this with the Chinese. A nation and a civilization that has through thousands of years maintained its essence- poise and confidence, and an unwavering belief and faith in its glorious future. The Chinese leadership and people have pursued their historical mission of rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and have delivered on all counts and by all standards. China's civilizational renaissance; the transformation of China into a great power; and comprehensive aggregation of China's national strength is the most consequential development of this century. China's peaceful rise, its rejection of the notions of hegemony and power politics, its moral voice in world affairs, its humility, its policies and practice of the 'new thinking' is worthy of deeper understanding and emulation. Most notably, the One Belt and One Road initiative of President Xi Jinping provides the answers to the topical questions of our times. An inclusive preposition to build corridors and connectivity for peaceful commerce and mutual prosperity. A win -win model of cooperation among nations of the world. The Eurasian land bridge and maritime routes, which are designed to expand avenues of development and prosperity on a scale not witnessed ever before. In short, geo-economics rather than geo-politics is the way forward in a world troubled by strife and conflict and riven by dissensions of class, creed,...
Pakistan, Iran & China in the Pipeline
The lifting of the economic sanctions against Iran following its historic nuclear deal with the P5+1 on 14 July 2015 may prove the catalyst in the rise of the country as a regional economic powerhouse. It is buoyed by the prospects of a new era of growth and development. Nearly 10% of the total global oil reserves make Iran considerably wealthy in terms of global oil resources.[1] There seems to be a rush of foreign investors to Iran in search of business ventures which the country desperately needs. The new situation has also brightened the prospects of the lingering Iran-Pakistan Gas Pipeline (IP). Work on the Iranian end was completed in July 2011, whereas Pakistan’s portion is to be completed by 2018. It is worth recalling that Hillary Clinton as former Secretary of State, too, had warned Pakistan of consequences if it went ahead with the construction of the pipeline. But, with the nuclear deal signed, this obstruction seems to be over and Pakistan now needs to show its resolve and complete this ambitious project that has been in limbo since the 1990s. Pakistan’s Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources, Shahid Khakan Abbasi, expressed his relief too. According to him, the July 2015 US-Iran nuclear deal, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), opened the way for Pakistan to proceed on the project. Sanctions on Iran were a major hurdle in commencing the work on project, but now the work will be started within six months and will be completed by December 2017.[2] With the CPEC in full swing this would be the most opportune time to invite Iran as an important stakeholder in the mega project. Iran-Pakistan relations are rooted in history, primarily because of geographical, religious and cultural proximity. Shia Muslims make up to 20 percent of the total population of Pakistan, the second largest Shi’ite population in the world after Iran. Another factor that connects the two countries are the Baloch that live on either side of the 909 km border....
Pakistan, Iran & China in the Pipeline
The lifting of the economic sanctions against Iran following its historic nuclear deal with the P5+1 on 14 July 2015 may prove the catalyst in the rise of the country as a regional economic powerhouse. It is buoyed by the prospects of a new era of growth and development. Nearly 10% of the total global oil reserves make Iran considerably wealthy in terms of global oil resources.[1] There seems to be a rush of foreign investors to Iran in search of business ventures which the country desperately needs. The new situation has also brightened the prospects of the lingering Iran-Pakistan Gas Pipeline (IP). Work on the Iranian end was completed in July 2011, whereas Pakistan’s portion is to be completed by 2018. It is worth recalling that Hillary Clinton as former Secretary of State, too, had warned Pakistan of consequences if it went ahead with the construction of the pipeline. But, with the nuclear deal signed, this obstruction seems to be over and Pakistan now needs to show its resolve and complete this ambitious project that has been in limbo since the 1990s. Pakistan’s Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources, Shahid Khakan Abbasi, expressed his relief too. According to him, the July 2015 US-Iran nuclear deal, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), opened the way for Pakistan to proceed on the project. Sanctions on Iran were a major hurdle in commencing the work on project, but now the work will be started within six months and will be completed by December 2017.[2] With the CPEC in full swing this would be the most opportune time to invite Iran as an important stakeholder in the mega project. Iran-Pakistan relations are rooted in history, primarily because of geographical, religious and cultural proximity. Shia Muslims make up to 20 percent of the total population of Pakistan, the second largest Shi’ite population in the world after Iran. Another factor that connects the two countries are the Baloch that live on either side of the 909 km border....
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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.