In war-torn Afghanistan, fighting and violence have been continuing…reports Asian Lite News
Afghans from all walks of life are calling for ceasefire to be observed in Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which starts on Tuesday.
In war-torn Afghanistan, fighting and violence have been continuing, and in the latest wave, over 50 people including Taliban militants, government security personnel and civilians were killed, according to sources and local media reports.
An explosive device went off in Imam Sahib district of Kunduz province on Sunday afternoon, killing two civilians and injuring another, reports Xinhua news agency.
District chief Nazikmir Akbari has blamed the Taliban militants for planting the explosive device to terrorize the local residents.
Refugees from Afghanistan arrive at Skala Sikaminias, on the island of Lesvos, Greece(Xinhua/Marios Lolos/IANS)
A similar blast claimed the lives of two children in Arghandab district in the southern Kandahar province on Saturday, police spokesperson Jamal Barikzai has said.
According to security officials, 18 militants have been killed in Kandahar and 14 more in the neighbouring Uruzgan province since Saturday.
At least 16 more insurgents have recently been killed in the Wardak, Kunduz and Samangan provinces, according to officials.
“The month of Ramadan is the month of peace and brotherhood and therefore I ask the Taliban and the government to observe cease-fire and let the Afghans to live in peace at least in Ramadan,” Noorul Haq Khan, a Kabul resident, told Xinhua.
First Vice President Amrullah Saleh, at a gathering in the Shamali area outside the capital Kabul on Sunday, called on the Taliban outfit to meet the demand by the Afghan people for cease-fire and reconciliation.
Lawmaker Mohiudin Munsif was quoted by the local media as saying, “Taliban should observe ceasefire at least in Ramadan” if they want peace.
According to local media reports, a former commander, Sayed Akbar Agha, said that “no sign of observing ceasefire from the Taliban” has been seen.
Local media reports said 79 security personnel and 28 civilians have been killed and 106 others including 57 civilians injured over the past seven days in Afghanistan.
It is time that Army Chief Bajwa, stepped up his game and smothered the broad spectrum of opportunists who have made feud with India, a money-minting industry, reports Atul Aneja
Pakistans abrupt U-turn on its decision to buy cotton from India has exposed a myriad of contradictions within the Pakistani establishment, anchored by the military, and a broken civilian cabal.
Saner elements within the Pakistani fourth estate have noted with dismay, the dysfunctionality of their country’s “system,” which is unable to distinguish between myopic “gains” and clear-eyed long-term interests.
In a pithy editorial on April 3, the liberal Dawn newspaper called the reversal of the decision, taken first by Prime Minister Imran Khan during a cabinet meeting, which he inexplicably overturned the very next day as “bizarre”.
The daily called the about-turn as “one that falls squarely under the unfortunate category of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing. Not only does it betray a lack of coordination within the government, it also points to poor decision-making on a serious matter that requires a sensible and level-headed approach.”
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi speaks at a press conference. (Xinhua/Asad/IANS)
Consequently, Islamabad today is agog with frenzied speculation. Some media pundits have attributed the back-and-forth by Khan as the reflection of a power struggle with hawkish foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi. Qureshi, leveraging his mass base acquired through his ancestral influence on a Sufi cult, is fast emerging as a potent rival to Khan. Qureshi is also well-plugged into a section of the Pakistani military, the real power behind the throne.
The controversial foreign minister has argued that any opening of trade with India would give the world an impression that relations were moving towards normalization. That, in turn would hurt the Kashmir �cause’ that Pakistan has been espousing globally.
In an editorial, The Friday Times’ veteran scribe, Najam Sethi, has pointed out that Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa, the big picture reader, had understood that cooling military tensions with India was necessary to stop the fragile Pakistani economy going into free fall. He stressed that the General was “trying to ease tensions with India and “normalise” � forget Kashmir for the time being � because the simmering conflict had strained his budgets and stretched his limits. The long war on the Line of Control was unaffordable. Hundreds of artillery shells costing thousands of USD were being lobbed every day, not to forget the cost of maintaining troops at full alert along a long perimeter. Just the fuel cost of keeping squadrons of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) jets in the air when tensions were periodically running high was prohibitive. In real terms, the defence budget is more or less frozen because the government’s revenue base hasn’t increased in the last two years owing to a slump in the economy.”
Pakistan Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa meets Prime Minister Imran Khan
Insiders told India Narrative that it would be wrong to assume that the Pakistani military was fully united in backing the revival of the ceasefire agreement along the LOC, which was essentially top-driven. “The relatively junior ranks of colonels and majors, who have been on the frontend of the Kashmir Jihad have opposed the ceasefire deal, exposing contradictions within the Pakistani military hierarchy,” one of them said.
Consequently, it is unlikely that infiltration and terror will end in Kashmir right away. But without a complete and verifiable halt to terror in Kashmir, India will also be forced to step-back from the budding peace process.
Pakistan’s political class is also badly divided on normalising ties with India.
On April 3, the News International reported that the opposition Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) opposed the government’s moves to import goods from India.
“Prime Minister should tell the nation whether his government has accepted annexation of Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJ&K) with Indian while compromising on settlement of core dispute as per United Nations resolutions,” former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told the media. Abbasi pointed out that the prime minister as in-charge of the Ministry of Commerce, on March 26 moved a summary to ECC seeking approval for import of three lacs tonnes of sugar and unlimited quantity of cotton from India till June 30. “It was a totally India specific summary,” he said.
Indian Army soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir
Pakistan’s commercial class, in turn stands opposed to the U-turn that Khan had inelegantly mounted. Unsurprisingly, Pakistan’s sugar and cotton importers have slammed the decision, arguing that both commodities were direly needed and were available in India, possibly at low rates.
As the slugfest in Pakistan gets nasty, the chances are that a beneath the radar, the two commodities from India could well arrive in Pakistan via Dubai. Of course, this import would be vastly more expensive.
Security analyst Muhammad Amir Rana welcomed “the renewed discourse on bilateral trade � despite the subsequent backtracking � reflects Pakistan’s apparently changing and intertwined national security and economic diplomacy outlooks.” Writing in Dawn (April 4, 2010), Rana said Pakistan’s power elites “have never seriously addressed the economic issue. Pakistan has to focus more on transforming its economy, which may require good relations with India, Afghanistan and Iran.”
In the final analysis, Pakistan’s seemingly irreconcilable contradictions may have a far more serious outcome�the complete breakdown of trust with India. It is time that Army Chief Bajwa, stepped up his game and smothered the broad spectrum of opportunists who have made feud with India, a money-minting industry.
Turkey expressed concern to the Russian envoy in Ankara over recent attacks in Idlib….reports Asian Lite News
Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said he spoke with his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoigu during which they discussed measures to prevent ceasefire violations in Syria’s Idlib province.
“We have agreed to take measures to maintain the ceasefire,” Akar told reporters on Thursday about the phone conversation.
Noting that the discussion was “constructive”, the Minister said “we aim permanently to hold the ceasefire in the region”, reports Xinhua news agency.
On Monday, Turkey expressed concern to the Russian envoy in Ankara over recent attacks in Idlib.
SYRIA
Akar also informed that more than 200 terrorists had been eliminated in anti-terror operations mostly in northern Syria since March 1.
Ankara and Moscow agreed in 2018 to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone where acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.
The two sides agreed on a protocol on March 5, 2020, to initiate a ceasefire and to observe it through a joint patrol mission on the M4 highway, Hurriyet Daily News reported.
Idlib is home to around 4 million Syrians and some armed terror groups.
Turkey is concerned about a fresh massive humanitarian influx as a result of the Russian-Syrian military offensive in the region.
The UAE, which has historic diplomatic links with India and Pakistan, has taken a more assertive international role under de facto ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan…reports Asian Lite News
The India-Pakistan ceasefire marked a milestone in secret talks brokered by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that began months earlier, according to a Bloomberg news report.
The UAE, which has historic trade and diplomatic links with India and Pakistan, has taken a more assertive international role under de facto ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Bloomberg report said.
About 24 hours after military chiefs from India and Pakistan surprised the world last month with a rare joint commitment to respect a 2003 ceasefire agreement, a top UAE diplomat flew to New Delhi for a quick one-day visit, the report said.
The official UAE readout of the February 26 meeting gave few clues of what Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed spoke about with Indian counterpart S. Jaishankar, noting they “discussed all regional and international issues of common interest and exchanged views on them”, the report said.
The ceasefire, the newspaper quoted officials as saying, is only the beginning of a larger roadmap to forge a lasting peace between the neighbours, both of which have nuclear weapons and spar regularly over a decades-old territory dispute.
The next step in the process, the officials said, involves both sides reinstating envoys in New Delhi and Islamabad, who were pulled out in 2019.
Then comes the hard part, talks on resuming trade and a lasting resolution on Kashmir, the subject of three wars since India, the Bloomberg report said.
Last week, Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa asked India “to bury the past and move forward” while saying the military was ready to enter talks to resolve “all our outstanding issues”.
The comments came a day after Prime Minister Imran Khan called for a resolution on Kashmir, which he described as “the one issue that holds us back”.
On March 20, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to Twitter to wish his Pakistani counterpart well after the latter was diagnosed with Covid-19, another sign that relations between the countries are getting warmer.
