The discussions between the two militaries, according to Normand’s source, should not be seen as a recognition of the coup leaders but rather as a “technical” discussion…reports Asian Lite News
The United States is shifting troops from Niger’s capital, Niamey—where a coup occurred in July—to the Agadez region, according to the Pentagon.
With about 1,100 military personnel in Niger, the Defence Department notes that they’ve primarily remained on bases, reducing activities like joint training since the coup.
Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh emphasised that there is no immediate threat or violence against US personnel, characterizing the move as a precautionary measure.
A small contingent will remain at Air Base 101, while some non-essential personnel and contractors have already left the country.
Niger has been pivotal for American and French anti-jihadist efforts, and France is also discussing withdrawing parts of its presence there.
Nicolas Normand, a former French ambassador to Mali and Senegal, confirmed the information to Al Jazeera, stating that, in accordance with his sources, negotiations to “partially” evacuate soldiers between the French and Niger forces were in progress.
The discussions between the two militaries, according to Normand’s source, should not be seen as a recognition of the coup leaders but rather as a “technical” discussion.
France has been at odds with Niger’s new military leadership, after France’s refusal to accept the July 26 coup that toppled President Mohamed Bazoum, a French ally. French President Emmanuel Macron has continued to support Bazoum, who is still being held.
Thousands of people rallied for days in the capital Niamey in support of the new regime’s uncompromising attitude against the former colonial power and the coup leaders’ call for the French ambassador and military to leave Niger.
As part of France’s larger campaign against armed rebels in the Sahel region, about 1,500 French troops are stationed in Niger. After coups forced withdrawal of French forces from adjacent Mali and Burkina Faso, Niger became a crucial hub for France, Al Jazeera reported.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson attends NATO in Madrid. The Prime Minister Boris Johnson meets with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the NATO Summit in Madrid, Spain. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
NATO has introduced the New Force Model in support of Leaders’ decision to modernise and strengthen the NATO Force Structure for the future…reports Asian Lite News
The UK has announced an increased contribution to NATO as the Prime Minister and Defence Secretary attend the NATO summit in Madrid.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace MP said, “We have always been clear that our strength and security comes from our alliances, and NATO is at the heart of that. The New Force Model and our presence in Estonia will ensure that the Alliance is able to respond at pace, helping to determine stability across Europe in the decades to come.”
RAF Typhoon and F-35B Lightning fighter jets, Royal Navy vessels including Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers, and brigade-sized land forces will all be made available to NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) as part of the New Force Model.
NATO has introduced the New Force Model in support of Leaders’ decision to modernise and strengthen the NATO Force Structure for the future. Allies will declare capabilities, equipment and forces available to support SACEUR, ensuring they are in the right place at the right time. This will allow the Alliance’s military command to plan for emerging threats, safe in the knowledge that these assets will be available to take part in the Alliance’s response.
The UK will also contribute to the new Allied Reaction Force: an agile, multi-domain and combat-effective force ready to deploy at very high readiness and to respond to a range of crises.
It comes as the Alliance has agreed a new posture of stronger forward defences to reflect the radically changed security context since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russian military was throwing everything it has into the battle, with most of its combat-ready forces now concentrated in Ukraine and just across the border in Russia…reports Asian Lite News
Russia assaulted cities and towns along a boomerang-shaped front hundreds of miles long and poured more troops into Ukraine on Tuesday in a potentially pivotal battle for control of the country’s eastern industrial heartland of coal mines and factories.
If successful, the Russian offensive in what is known as the Donbas would essentially slice Ukraine in two and give President Vladimir Putin a badly needed victory following the failed attempt by Moscow’s forces to storm the capital, Kyiv, and heavier-than-expected casualties nearly two months into the war.
The eastern cities of Kharkiv and Kramatorsk came under deadly attack. Russia also said it struck areas around Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro west of the Donbas with missiles. Multiple explosions were heard early Wednesday in the southern city of Mykolaiv, the regional governor said. A hospital was reported shelled earlier in the nearby town of Bashtanka.
In Mariupol, the now-devastated port city in the Donbas, Ukrainian troops said the Russian military dropped heavy bombs to flatten what was left of a sprawling steel plant and hit a hospital where hundreds were staying.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Moscow’s forces bombarded numerous Ukrainian military sites, including troop concentrations and missile-warhead storage depots, in or near several cities or villages. Those claims could not be independently verified.
In what both sides described as a new phase of the war, the Russian assault began Monday along a front stretching more than 300 miles (480 kilometers) from northeastern Ukraine to the country’s southeast. Ukraine’s military said Russian forces tried to “break through our defenses along nearly the entire front line.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russian military was throwing everything it has into the battle, with most of its combat-ready forces now concentrated in Ukraine and just across the border in Russia.
“They have driven almost everyone and everything that is capable of fighting us against Ukraine,” he said in his nightly video address to the nation.
Despite Russian claims of hitting only military sites, they continue to target residential areas and kill civilians, he said.
“The Russian army in this war is writing itself into world history forever as the most barbaric and inhuman army in the world,” Zelensky said.
Weeks ago, after the abortive Russian push to take Kyiv, the Kremlin declared that its main goal was the capture of the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years.
A Russian victory in the Donbas would deprive Ukraine of the industrial assets concentrated there, including mines, metals plants and heavy-equipment factories.
A senior US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the Pentagon’s assessments of the war, said the Russians had added two more combat units, known as battalion tactical groups, in Ukraine over the preceding 24 hours. That brought the total number of units in the country to 78, all of them in the south and the east, up from 65 last week, the official said.
That would translate to about 55,000 to 62,000 troops, based on what the Pentagon said at the start of the war was the typical unit strength of 700 to 800 soldiers. But accurately determining Russia’s fighting capacity at this stage is difficult.
A European official, likewise speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss military assessments, said Russia also has 10,000 to 20,000 foreign fighters in the Donbas. They are a mix of mercenaries from Russia’s private Wagner Group and Russian proxy fighters from Syria and Libya, according to the official.
While Ukraine portrayed the attacks on Monday as the start of the long-feared offensive in the east, some observers noted that an escalation has been underway there for some time and questioned whether this was truly the start of a new offensive.
The US official said the offensive in the Donbas has begun in a limited way, mainly in an area southwest of the city of Donetsk and south of Izyum.
Justin Crump, a former British tank commander now with the strategic advisory company Sibylline, said the Ukrainian comments could, in part, be an attempt to persuade allies to send more weapons.
“What they’re trying to do by positioning this, I think, is … focus people’s minds and effort by saying, ‘Look, the conflict has begun in the Donbas,’” Crump said. “That partly puts pressure on NATO and EU suppliers to say, ‘Guys, we’re starting to fight now. We need this now.’”
President Joe Biden is expected to announce a new weapons package in the coming days that will include additional artillery and ammunition, according to a US official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also said his country will send heavy artillery to Ukraine. And Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told Zelensky that the Netherlands will send more heavy weapons, including armored vehicles.
Western arms have played a key role in enabling the outgunned Ukrainians to hold off the Russians.
Associated Press journalists in Kharkiv said at least four people were killed and three wounded in a Russian attack on a residential area of the city. The attack occurred as residents attempted to maintain a sense of normalcy, with municipal workers planting spring flowers in public areas.
In Bashtanka, an unspecified number of people were wounded when Russian forces shelled the hospital, destroying the reception area and the dialysis unit, the head of the regional council, Hanna Zamazeeva, said on Facebook. Bashtanka is about 70 kilometers (40 miles) north of Mykolaiv.
Truss did say it was “very unlikely” British troops would be involved should there be a fight for Ukraine…reports Asian Lite News
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg reiterated on Sunday that NATO would not send troops to Ukraine should Russia invade.
“We are focusing on providing support,” Stoltenberg said, adding, “There is a difference between being a NATO member and being a strong and highly valued partner (such) as Ukraine. There’s no doubt about that,” he said in an interview with BBC.
UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told Sky News that her country will seek to tighten sanctions on Vladimir Putin so there is no place for his oligarchs to hide.
She said the short-term profits came at a real cost of longer term threats to democracy and freedom in the UK and other Western allies.
So-called “Londongrad” has come under renewed attention as a primary destination for politically sensitive Russian businessmen and their capital.
Last week, the US warned that the UK’s acceptance of what it called Russian “dirty money” threatened the effectiveness of any sanctions regime Washington will seek to impose to deter and potentially punish Russia.
Washington has been coordinating with allies should Moscow follow through on its military build-up on Ukraine’s borders and invade and occupy parts of that country beyond Crimea and the eastern region known as the Donbas.
Truss did say it was “very unlikely” British troops would be involved should there be a fight for Ukraine.
“This is about making sure that the Ukrainian forces have all the support we can give them,” Truss said.
CNN reports UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Russian leader Vladimir Putin will speak this week. On Sunday, Johnson said the potential for Russian military action in Ukraine is “increasingly concerning.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also reiterated his position that NATO cannot claim to be defensive with foreign interventions such as the ones that occurred in Afghanistan, Libya and the former Yugoslavia under its belt.
Russian state-run Tass reported Lavrov told the program “Sunday Time” on Russia’s Channel One that Russia intends to protect its interests.
“When the Cold War was going on and the Berlin Wall existed, it was clear what territory to defend,” he said.
He added that requests are being sent to NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Russia’s requests are a follow up to ultimatums against NATO expansion and force posture in NATO member states previously issued by Russia.
Russia has sent over 100,000 troops to Ukraine’s borders and in recent days moved blood supplies closer to what could evolve into a front line.
Nonetheless, Russia’s national security adviser Nikolai Patrushev said talk of war with Ukraine consisted of “self-serving fabrications” of the West.
“We don’t want war, we don’t need it at all,” Russian state-run Interfax news agency quoted Patrushev.
The US and NATO rejected Russia’s demands but US Ambassador to Moscow John Sullivan has said the US offered to reduce military exercises and missile numbers in Europe. Lavrov previously derided both the US and NATO’s responses, but he conceded that the US proposals offered “grains of rationality” on secondary issues.
Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul wrote on Twitter, “For the Russian Foreign Minster (with whom I interacted with for five years back in the day), that’s as (complimentary) as he gets!”
Austin “thanked India for its cooperation throughout the evacuation process and retrograde mission in Afghanistan”, the readout of the Monday phone conversation said…reports Arul Louis.
The US Defence Department has revealed that India cooperated with the US in the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and the evacuation of its citizens and others after the Taliban took over the country on August 15, and has agreed to help those at risk there, according to a US spokesperson.
The disclosure came out in a readout on Tuesday by department spokesperson John Kirby of Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin’s phone conversation with Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
Austin “thanked India for its cooperation throughout the evacuation process and retrograde mission in Afghanistan”, the readout of the Monday phone conversation said.
“Both the leaders committed to continue to monitor the situation in Afghanistan,” Kirby said.
Their conversation came ahead of the Quad summit convened by US President Joe Biden with Prime Ministers Narendra Modi of India, Yoshihide Suga of Japan and Scott Morrison of Australia on Friday.
India has apparently had an understated role in the chaotic US departure from Afghanistan, unlike some other countries like Qatar which cooperated overtly.
Kirby did not expand in his readout on the precise role of India.
The US evacuated over 120,000 people from Afghanistan, including its citizens and permanent residents as well as those who had worked with US organisations in the war-torn nation and others facing danger from the Taliban.
None of the evacuation flights was known to have gone to India.
Rajnath Singh, who tweeted about the conversation, did not mention the cooperation in the evacuation or troop withdrawal (for which Kirby used the military euphemism, ‘retrograde mission’).
His tweet said that they discussed bilateral defence cooperation and regional matters, including Afghanistan.
Kirby said that Singh and Austin “reiterated their commitment to ensure the Indo-Pacific region remains free and open”.
Austin told Singh that he looked forward to hosting him for the 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue of the heads of foreign affairs and defence of the two countries, expected to be held later this year, Kirby added.
Austin had visited India in March and has been in constant touch with Singh.
President authorizes deployment of 5,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to support the drawdown of the American Embassy personnel from Kabul, reports Asian Lite News
President Joe Biden announced that he has authorized the deployment of roughly 5,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to support the drawdown of the American Embassy personnel from Kabul, warning the Taliban not to put the staff and mission at risk.
“Based on the recommendations of our diplomatic, military, and intelligence teams, I have authorised the deployment of approximately 5,000 US troops to make sure we can have an orderly and safe drawdown of US personnel and other allied personnel and an orderly and safe evacuation of Afghans who helped our troops during our mission and those at special risk from the Taliban advance,” Biden said in a statement late Saturday.
“We have conveyed to the Taliban representatives in Doha, via our Combatant Commander, that any action on their part on the ground in Afghanistan, that puts US personnel or our mission at risk there, will be met with a swift and strong US military response,” he added.
The Pentagon announced last week that three infantry battalions, about 3,000 troops, will be deployed to Kabul airport to support US embassy staff reduction and Afghan Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) applicants evacuation given the Taliban’s rapid offensive across the country.
Biden’s decision to send more forces comes as the Taliban seized control of Mazar-e-Sharif, the country’s fourth largest city, dealing another crushing defeat to the Afghan government.
The militant group now controls about 24 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, and are rapidly marching towards the capital, Kabul.
Three more key Afghan cities fall to Taliban
Meanwhile, as the Taliban is continuing its rapid march towards Kabul, three more important cities have fallen to the insurgent group amid ongoing intense clashes with the war-torn country’s security forces.
On Sunday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed that the militants took control of most parts of Jalalabad, capital of Nangarhar province, some 120 km east of Kabul, reports Xinhua news agency.
He said the militants were also trying to seize control of the governor’s office and the provincial police headquarters in Jalalabad.
Jalalabad’s collapse came after the fall of Asadabad city, capital of Kunar province, and Sharan, the capital of Paktika province, on Saturday.
A witness said that the Taliban militants entered Asadabad at around 3 p.m. on Saturday and seized control of the city.
All the provincial officials, according locals, have moved to Nangarhar.
Meanwhile, the Taliban spokesman also confirmed the fall of Asadabad, saying that the government security forces had surrendered and all parts of the city are now under the militants’ control.
In a statement to Xinhua news agency, Paktika provincial council chief Bakhtiar Gul Zadran confirmed the fall of Sharan city, adding that the entire province is now under Taliban control.
All officials of the province have gone to a military base, Zadran said without providing more details
Earlier on Saturday, Taliban declared that they captured Mazar-i-Sharif and Maimana cities in the northern region, Gardez and Mehtarlam cities in the eastern part of the country.
Since the escalation of fighting in May, the Taliban has so far captured more than 20 provincial capitals.
2 key Afghan warlords flee to Uzbekistan
Prominent Afghan warlords Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum and Atta Muhammad Noor, who were defending Mazar-e-Sharif, have fled to Uzbekistan along with their fighters and sons after the fall of the city to the Taliban.
In a Facebook post, Noor said that the collapse of Mazar-e-sharif was a plot and aimed at getting himself and Dostum surrendered, as per media reports.
The only province in the north of Afghanistan, Balkh, fell to the Taliban which brought the entire northern zone under the fighters’ control.
— YesPunjab.com (For Punjabi follow @BawaHs) (@yespunjab) August 15, 2021
The Taliban launched heavy attacks on the provincial capital, Mazar-e-sharif, and toppled the city after a relatively heavy confrontation with the Afghan Forces and the armed uprising.
The Afghan government has not commented on the collapse of the Balkh province yet.
Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid on his Twitter wrote that the provincial office, police headquarter; NDS local office, and 209th Shaheen corps have fallen to the fighters.
Mujahid added that the central prison has also been broken and inmates were set free.
Earlier, Noor had said he will never ever surrender to the Taliban and there was no power to get him arrested in the province.
Dostum had also said that Balkh is the door of Afghanistan and they will never let the province topple.
The UK troops will provide force protection and logistical support for the relocation of British nationals where required, and former Afghan staff who risked their lives serving alongside the UK, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said, reports Asian Lite Newsdesk
About 600 UK troops will be sent to Afghanistan to assist British nationals to leave, the government has announced amid deteriorating security situation in the war-torn country.
In parallel, the number of staff working at the British Embassy in Kabul has been reduced to a core team focused on providing consular and visa services for those needing to rapidly leave the country.
Last Friday the FCDO changed Travel Advice to recommend that all British nationals leave Afghanistan as soon as possible, while commercial travel options remain available.
Any British nationals who are still in Afghanistan are encouraged to contact the Embassy in Kabul as soon as possible for assistance, the government has advised.
The UK troops will provide force protection and logistical support for the relocation of British nationals where required and assist with the acceleration of the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP).
This will help to make sure interpreters and other Afghan staff who risked their lives working alongside UK forces in Afghanistan can relocate to the UK as soon as possible.
In a statement, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: “I have authorised the deployment of additional military personnel to support the diplomatic presence in Kabul, assist British nationals to leave the country and support the relocation of former Afghan staff who risked their lives serving alongside us.”
He said the security of British nationals, British military personnel and former Afghan staff is the first priority. “We must do everything we can to ensure their safety.”
The additional military support announced on Thursday will arrive in Kabul over the coming days, he said.
Sir Laurie Bristow, the UK’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, will continue to lead a small team in Afghanistan which will relocate within Kabul to a more secure location. This team will focus on helping remaining UK nationals to leave the country, and is working with international partners to support the Afghan Government.
ARAP, launched on 1 April 2021, has already supported over 3,100 former Afghan staff and their families to start new lives in the UK, with more than 1,800 of them arriving over the last few weeks alone.
In the coming days UK Government will further accelerate work on this scheme to ensure those who are eligible go through the necessary security checks and have the required documentation to travel to the UK.
The government said UK remains committed to Afghanistan and will continue working as part of the international coalition to support the country’s government through our diplomacy, development and counter terrorism work.
This year the UK will provide Afghanistan with more than £100 million of support to improve critical health and education services, it said.
Ghani ready to share power
The Ashraf Ghani-led Afghanistan government on Thursday has offered a “share of power” to the Taliban in a bid to stop the escalating violence in the war-torn country where the insurgent group has captured 10 provincial capitals so far.
ARY News reported that the government had offered a power-sharing deal in which it has also asked the Taliban to end attacks on civilians.
The development came soon after Taliban spokesperson Qari Yousaf Ahmadi said the group had captured Ghazni city, the capital of the eponymous province in Afghanistan’s southeast.
The Afghanistan government, during the extended Troika meeting in Qatar’s Doha has raised grave concerns over the Taliban’s brutal attacks on cities, which have led to war crimes and blatant human rights violations and humanitarian catastrophe in the country, Afghan foreign ministry said.
The extended Doha Troika meeting, comprising the US, Russia, China, and Pakistan, was aimed at resuming meaningful intra-Afghan peace negotiations even as US-led foreign troops finalised their withdrawal from the region.
Meanwhile, Taliban on Thursday claimed to have seized Herat, Afghanistan’s third-largest city amid US troop withdrawal from the country.
Herat “was also captured,” Sputnik reported citing a Taliban statement.
Buildings in the province, including the police headquarters, came under Taliban control, and government forces “laid down their arms,” it added.
Local media and journalists posted images and videos of Afghan forces fleeing from the city in the western part of Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reported that Taliban has entered Kandahar city. Some local residents told the media outlet that the situation in Afghanistan’s second-largest city was “dire”, as intense fighting rages between rebels and government forces inside the city limits. (with inputs from ANI)
The prime minister said that the UK did not underestimate the challenge of the NATO mission in Afghanistan and pledged to continue supporting Kabul after troops’ withdrawal…reports Asian Lite News.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Thursday said that all British troops are returning to the United Kingdom from Afghanistan, adding that the majority of personnel is already withdrawn.
“All British troops assigned to NATO’s mission in Afghanistan are now returning home. For obvious reasons, I will not disclose the timetable of our departure, but I can tell the House [of Commons] that most of our personnel have already left,” Johnson told the UK parliament.
The prime minister said that the UK did not underestimate the challenge of the NATO mission in Afghanistan and pledged to continue supporting Kabul after troops’ withdrawal.
“The international military presence in Afghanistan was never intended to be permanent. We and our NATO allies were always going to withdraw our forces. The only question was when, and there could never be a perfect moment,” Johnson added.
Meanwhile, the US has completed “more than 90 per cent” of its entire withdrawal from Afghanistan, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) had informed in a statement.
“The withdrawal process continues; US Central Command estimates that we have completed more than 90 per cent of the entire withdrawal process,” said CENTCOM.
This comes in the backdrop of the rapid increase in violence in the country amid the Taliban’s continuing stride in the country and the capture of dozens of districts throughout Afghanistan.
“As of July 5, Department of Defence has retrograded the equivalent of approximately 984 C-17 aircraft- loads of material out of Afghanistan and has turned over nearly 17,074 pieces of equipment to the Defense Logistics Agency for disposition,” the release said.
Nearly two decades after the first American troops arrived in Bagram and helped take control of the field, the transfer of the field to the Afghan military was completed last week without much fanfare.
As the Taliban have taken control of several districts across the country, US intelligence assessments have suggested the country’s civilian government could fall to the terror group within months of US forces withdrawing.
Ashraf Ghani (Number 10)
On Tuesday, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani had said that the Taliban cannot make the Afghan government surrender even in the next one hundred years.
Ghani in a cabinet meeting also said that the Taliban and its supporters are solely responsible for the current bloodshed and destruction in the country, The Khaama Press reported.
National Security Advisor Hamdullah Muhib said that the Taliban’s territory expansion does not mean they are being welcomed by Afghans, and added that people are ready to defend their territories.
He also informed that seven black hawk choppers are soon to be handed over to Afghan National Defence and Security forces that will help bring the ongoing conflict under control. (ANI/Sputnik)
Army Commanders’ Conference is an apex level biannual event, which formulates important policy decisions through collegiate deliberations, reports Asian Lite News
Amidst border standoff with China, the Indian Army holds a commanders’ conference led by General Manoj Mukund Naravane from Thursday to review the operational situation at the border with China and Pakistan. Indian Army Commanders’ Conference is an apex level biannual event, which formulates important policy decisions through collegiate deliberations.
The conference is attended by senior officers of the Army including the vice chief of the army staff, all commanders, principal staff officers (PSOs) of the Army Headquarters and other senior officers.
In the two-day conference, the Army top brass will discuss the current position of Chinese People’s Liberation Army positions in disputed areas at Gogra, Hot Springs, Demchok and Depsang at Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh.
China has enhanced troops, artillery and armour deployment in three sectors of Line of Actual Control — western (Ladakh), middle (Uttarakhand, Himachal) and eastern (Sikkim, Arunachal) sectors.
A year after the Galwan valley clash in Eastern Ladakh, China is still sitting at the Line of Actual Control and India has geared up for a long grind. Indian and Chinese military delegates had 11 rounds of talks to resolve border disputes at friction points.
During the commanders’ conference meeting, Army top brass discuss how to be better prepared to face Chinese belligerence in Ladakh over the last year as a final resolution seems far off. India has enhanced military infrastructure, increased troop deployment to 50,000 to 60,000, and constructed better roads connectivity for quick mobilisation.
Last month, General Naravane said that the troops are on high alert at Line of Actual Control and are keeping watch on Chinese People’s Liberation Army activities.
The Indian Army chief stated that India wants the status quo ante of April 2020 to be restored. He also stated that India has made it clear to China that de-escalation will only be considered once disengagement is completed to the mutual satisfaction of both the sides.
He had said that Indian troops are on high alert and deployments have not thinned after the disengagement in Pangong River.
General Naravane said that India is currently concentrating on resolving outstanding problems at other friction points like Hot Springs, Gogra and Depsang at Line of Actual Control.
The army chief also stated that trust levels between two countries are low but pointed out that the trust deficit should not hinder the negotiation process.
At Galwan valley, the clash took place on June 15 last year sparking a war like situation. Later by the end of August last year there was a further build up across and Pangong Lake at 14,000 ft turning it into a battle zone as India occupied key mountain tops at the Kailash Range overlooking the southern bank of the lake.
Earlier, Macron also threatened that the country would withdraw troops from Mali if political turmoil there leads to greater Islamist radicalisation…reports Asian Lite News.
French President Emmanuel Macron spoke in favour of the withdrawal of foreign forces, including Russian and Turkish, from the territory of Libya.
“As Libyans themselves demand, we must stop any foreign intervention, and this goes through the withdrawal of all forces of foreign mercenaries from the territory of Libya – Russian, Turkish, their Syrian mercenaries, and others,” Macron said after a meeting with Libya’s interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh.
“We are working on this with you and with all our partners. And this pullout [of foreign troops] should go along with the creation of a unified army,” he said.
He also announced France’s readiness to support Libya politically.
“It is necessary to guarantee the success of the national elections scheduled for the end of the year,” Macron said.
Earlier, Macron also threatened that the country would withdraw troops from Mali if political turmoil there leads to greater Islamist radicalisation.
It follows a second coup in nine months in the West African nation, the BBC reported.
Macron warned of the risk of Mali “moving towards” greater Islamist influence.
France has 5,100 troops in the Sahel region which has been a front line in the war against Islamist militancy.
French troops have been supporting forces in Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad to battle militants in the Sahel region since 2013.
Macron told Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper that he had told regional leaders that France would not support countries where there was no democratic legitimacy or transition, and that France had no intention of keeping its troops in Africa forever.
For decades France has provided military support to back leaders of its former colonies in Africa, often sending troops or despatching air strikes to counter armed rebels.
The French President has for some time been muttering about reducing, or withdrawing, the more than 5,000 French troops in the vast and troubled Sahel.
He is frustrated about a lack of commitment from most other European countries to fight the multiple militant Islamist groups in the region. They are considered a threat to Europe, both in terms of possible jihadist attacks on the continent and illegal migration.
But Macron faces another dilemma related to recent political events in two countries where French troops are active, Mali and Chad. Mali has had two military takeovers in the past nine months. Chad has had one.
Macron has been demanding an end to military rule in both. In Mali, he has threatened to withdraw French troops if the political chaos and uncertainty leads to an increase in radical Islam. But he is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Although French forces and their allies have failed to defeat the jihadists, who are becoming increasingly active in the Sahel and neighbouring regions, the fear is that, if France leaves, Islamist militancy will become even more rampant. (ANI/Sputnik/IANS) ALSO READ-France considering tighter curbs for UK tourists
