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N-deal with India on track: US
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Pak won’t surrender Khan to US: Kasuri
ISI “violating” human rights in Gilgit
India to take up Taliban issue with Pak
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N-deal with India on track: US
The Bush administration on Thursday brushed aside suggestions that the US-India civilian nuclear deal was in “serious trouble” and expressed confidence that it will be approved by members of the US Congress.
Asked whether the administration was confident the agreement would be ratified, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, “you don’t want to assume anything, but we think we have a good case with this deal.” But, he admitted, “We still have work to do with the Hill.” He was referring to Capitol Hill where the US Congress is situated. Mr McCormack said the Bush administration was going all out to encourage members of Congress to vote in support of the deal, and said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has devoted “enormous time” to ensure a positive outcome. “It’s certainly in the top two or three issues that the Secretary has been working on over the past few months,” he said. He noted there were still some issues that the Bush administration was trying to work out with the Government of India. “For example, the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty negotiations in the Council on Disarmament in the UN, we just tabled a text there. It’s certainly a text that we hope the Indian Government can support,” he said. Suggestions that the deal is in trouble were fueled by remarks from Congressman Tom Lantos, the senior Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, who recently noted it lacked unanimous bipartisan support in Congress. Mr McCormack conceded there are some members of Congress that have raised some “hard questions,” and added, “we don’t take anybody’s vote for granted on this and we’re going to do everything we can to see that every senator and every congressman that has an interest in this issue has their questions answered and that we give them enough information so that they can feel comfortable in voting for this deal.” Meanwhile, the American Jewish Committee, part of the powerful Jewish lobby in Washington, has written to senior members of House and Senate international relations committees urging them to support the deal. In a letter, David A. Harris, AJC’s executive director and E. Robert Goodkind, the group’s president noted the committee’s backing of the deal, and added, “We believe the overarching benefit of this agreement is strategic.” In a talk at the Northern California World Affairs Council in San Francisco earlier this month, Dr Andrew K. Semmel, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy and Negotiations, noted India is already acting on commitments made in the July 18 nuclear agreement. He said India has delivered to the US a list of specific reactors to be placed under safeguards and a plan to offer all 14 reactors for safeguards by 2014. In addition, India will place associated upstream and downstream facilities under safeguards and has declared nine research facilities as civilian. “In the coming months, we hope that India will also take a number of additional measures to further strengthen its commitment to global nonproliferation. In addition to adhering to the Missile Technology Control Regime and Nuclear Suppliers Group Guidelines, examples of additional measures we hope India will undertake include announcing its intention to participate in the Proliferation Security Initiative and harmonizing its export control lists with the Wassenaar Arrangement and the Australia Group,” he said, adding that the Bush administration will “continue to press these and other nonproliferation measures through the course of our strategic partnership.” In Washington this week, Richard A. Boucher, Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs, told the House International Relations Committee, that implementing the initiative “is a top priority.”
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Pak won’t surrender Khan to US: Kasuri
Islamabad, May 19 “We will share information with IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) but we have certain bottom lines,” Foreign Minister Khurshid M. Kasuri told Senate during a debate on Pakistan’s foreign policy here. Kasuri said in “unequivocal terms” that Pakistan “will not surrender him (Khan) to the United States”, the state-run APP news agency reported. Describing Pakistan’s foreign policy as the balanced one which was based on protection of national interests, he said “We value our relationship with the US but will never give in where our national interests are concerned”. Khan has been under house arrest for the past two years after he admitted proliferating nuclear technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea. He was subsequently forgiven by President Pervez Musharraf. Also almost all of Khan’s colleagues who were taken into custody for investigations have been released. Recent reports said Khan’s security has been tightened and the government has withdrawn permission to his daughter to meet him.
— PTI
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ISI “violating” human rights in Gilgit
Leaders of Pakistan-administered Gilgit and Baltistan have accused the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence of committing a series of human rights violations at the behest of the regime backed by President Pervez Musharraf.
Participating in a conference on Kashmir titled “Jammu and Kashmir: Alternative Futures”, in Manesar, Haryana, the leaders said India should refocus attention on Gilgit and Baltistan, which they claimed was facing popular unrest against Pakistani authorities due to large-scale anti-Shia violence that has taken a toll of over 100 lives so far. The leaders claimed that violence by Pakistani security forces against the Shia majority in the region has continued unabated since the 1980s. They demanded that leaders in India and Pakistan should take into account the concerns of Gilgit-Baltistan, which they claimed was a significant strategic area lying at the crossroads of the Indian subcontinent. The focus of the two countries, they added, should not only be on the resolution of the Kashmir dispute, but also ensuring that Pakistani security forces act with utmost restraint and observe internationally acceptable human rights standards. Manzoor Hussain Parwana, President of Gilgit-Baltistan Thinker Forum, said every Kashmir-centric step aimed at bringing peace to the region should provide solace to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan. “We have suffered too much. Demilitarisation and peace process should begin from those places where people have suffered the most. Authorities should make efforts to bring us to the same level as people in Pakistan and India so that we are able to interact with them. Until then, we stand nowhere. We are helpless,” said Parwana. The problem of Gilgit-Baltistan or Balwaristan has two layers - political and sectarian. When Pakistan took over the administration, it revived the black laws called Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR). Under these regulations, the local population had no civil rights and any political activity was considered an unpardonable crime. This law was clearly meant to dehumanise the local people so they did not obstruct their activities. Shafqat Inqlabi, a young leader belonging to the Karakoram National Movement, accused ISI of serious human rights violations and penetrating region’s local organisations to spread violence and hatred.
— ANI
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India to take up Taliban issue with Pak
India will use an appropriate forum of upcoming bilateral meetings under the Composite Dialogue process with Pakistan to raise the issue of Islamabad’s support to Taliban in Afghanistan.
Though any talk by India of the Taliban-ISI nexus would be cacophony to Pakistani ears, it is understood that New Delhi has made up its mind to raise the issue which has gained urgency after the kidnapping and murder of Indian engineer, K Suryanarayan, at the hands of Taliban in Afghanistan on April 30. The comeback of Taliban, ousted from power by the American military action in late 2001, is engaging the international community’s attention and the daring May 17-18 Taliban offensive in Musa Qala, Helmand province, is a testimony to the militia’s surgence. The ferocious storming of Musa Qala, which left 105 persons dead, was significant in more ways than one. The operation entailed hundreds of Taliban fighters pouring incessant fire into the government buildings and police station. The offensive was the longest and fiercest since the end of the war four years ago. The Taliban, though, were forced to retreat eventually, their symbolic declaration of intent came when Qari Mohammed Yousef, a Taliban commander, rang up a news agency from his satellite telephone to announce that the town in Helmand had fallen to the "forces of Islam". This is the first time since late 2001 that the Taliban have given such an effective notice to the international community of the forays it has made into the lost territory.
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