Islamabad, Mar.18 (ANI): Several federal ministers, the army chief, General Asfaq Pervez Kayani, the director-general of the ISI, Lt. General Ahmed Shuja Pasha and many federal secretaries will leave for Washington on Saturday to attend the fourth round of the US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue on March 24.
According to a report in the Dawn, Pakistan’s foreign policy gurus are terming the dialogue as a ‘renewed process’ and as one of the most intense diplomatic engagements that the two countries will have.
The paper claims that the U.S. representation at the dialogue, upgraded to ministerial level, will be equally strong.
The team will be headed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Other members will be National Security Adviser James Jones, Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke and a number of other top officials of the Obama administration.
The level of participation by both sides, analysts believe, is indicative of the desire of Islamabad and Washington to give a new meaning to their bilateral relations hitherto marred by trust deficit.
“This round is going to determine the future of Pakistan’s relations with the United States,” a top official told Dawn, after attending one of the preparatory sessions aimed at developing a unified perspective among the country’s state organs for this engagement with Washington.
Pakistan is often referred to by Washington as a ‘key regional player’ and a ‘major non-Nato ally’ with whom it eyed a ‘long-term engagement’, but it is probably the first time that Islamabad’s strategists are feeling that the time has come to tell Washington to move on from symbolism and concretely address Pakistan’s core security concerns and its immediate economic needs.
Among the issues on which Islamabad desires solid assurances are protection of its legitimate interests in Afghanistan; normalisation of relations with India, including resolution of the Kashmir issue; end to instability in Balochistan; accepting Pakistan as a declared nuclear weapons state and thereby quashing all rumours that the US was secretly working to defang the country.
On Pakistan’s wish-list is also a strong desire for civilian nuclear cooperation on the pattern of India-US deal. Although Pakistan primarily wants nuclear cooperation to meet its growing energy needs, the issue has a political connotation also because Islamabad doesn’t want to see itself discriminated against and at a disadvantage vis-à-vis India.
Strong emphasis will also be placed on Pakistan seeking market access for its products in the US and economic assistance at the dialogue, which now includes new strands like strategic stability, security, public diplomacy and health.
Pakistani policy makers are hoping to gain major concessions through the dialogue. (ANI)
Karachi, March 18 (IANS) Controversies in cricket and hockey have forced Pakistan President Asif Zardari to issue orders to the country’s sports authorities to take “concrete step” to arrest the decline.
According to a report in The News Thursday, Zardari has taken note of Pakistan’s falling standards in sports and has termed it a major problem facing the country like the menace of load-shedding.
Quoting sources, the report said that Zardari – who is also the chief patron of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) – is unhappy with the way things are going in major sports like cricket, hockey and squash and wants concrete steps to be taken to make things better.
“The president has termed our country’s sports decline as a major problem like load-shedding. He has lamented the national hockey team’s poor performance in the World Cup and has also expressed concerns over the ongoing cricket controversies,” a source said.
The president has asked the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Sports to give its suggestions and make recommendations to bring about improvement in the field of sports.
Sports in Pakistan has been hit hard in recent times with problems ranging from poor performance of the players to the incompetence of the people running games like cricket and hockey.
Meanwhile, the head of the National Assembly sports committee has asked Asif Bajwa – the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) secretary – to resign over Pakistan’s World Cup debacle.
“We will ask Asif Bajwa to step down as PHF secretary as our team failed miserably under his supervision,” said Jamshed Dasti, chairman of the sports committee.
“If he will not quit, we will launch a campaign for his removal,” added Dasti. “PHF needs change as it has become inevitable for betterment of national hockey,” he stressed.
Dasti said that his committee might summon top PHF officials and players for a meeting later this month.
“We may summon PHF players and officials March 27 after the conclusion of National Assembly session,” he concluded. Pakistan crashed to a catastrophic last-place finish in the Hockey in New Delhi following defeats against old rivals India, England, Australia and minnows South Africa and Canada.
Islamabad, Mar.18 (ANI): A few days ago Pakistan Punjab province’s Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s almost begged the Taliban to spare the province from violence. It was rather unusual for a political leader pleading to an outlawed extremist outfit to exempt the region which certainly highlights the fact that the roots of militancy have grown deeper into Punjab’s soil.
Existence of terrorist groups in Punjab is nothing new as there have been reports regarding several militant organisations thriving in the region such as the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Jaish-i-Mohammad, Sipah-i-Sahaba and Harkatul Jihad al-Islami, but the situation has never been so bad.
Recently, Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) issued a ‘red book’ containing the list of most wanted militants across the country. In the list of 119 criminals there were 25 suspects belonging to Punjab, the highest number for any province. This underlines the seriousness of the issue.
Terrorism is spreading to other parts of the country as well but nowhere has it has acquired the enormous stature as it has in Punjab.
The need is for a comprehensive plan to check the terror menace from making further in roads in Punjab, but the task seems to be really difficult as the nothing much is being done to address the wider problem of infrastructure of hate and religious intolerance that is thriving in the province, often under official patronage, an editorial in The Dawn said.
No matter how many militants the state captures or kills, there will always be more if the pipeline of hate continues to churn out brainwashed foot soldiers, the editorial added.
The Punjab authorities must find a way, and the will, to shut down the pipeline of hate and intolerance before its tool late, it concluded. (ANI)
Islamabad, March 18 (DPA) A five-year-old British boy who was released by his kidnappers in Pakistan after the family paid a ransom in Europe was reunited with his father Thursday, the British High Commission here said.
The kidnappers left Sahil Saeed along a road Tuesday in the eastern province of Punjab near the town of Jhelum, where he was abducted in a March 3 robbery at his grandparent’s home.
His father, Raja Naqash Saeed, flew from Britain and was reunited with his son Thursday at the the Islamabad residence of British High Commissioner Adam Thomson.
“Everyone was in very good spirits and, of course, delighted about his return,” a statement from the mission said.
Members of Sahil’s family, including his grandmother, were also at the reunion. Sahil and his father were expected to fly back to their family home in Oldham in Great Manchester.
Spanish police announced Wednesday that a Pakistani man and a Romanian woman were arrested for collecting a ransom of 111,000 pounds ($168,000) for Sahil in Paris and the money was recovered.
French police also arrested two Pakistanis as being accomplices.
Washington, Mar.18 (ANI): While stressing that talks between India and Pakistan is the key to reducing heightened tension in the region, US Central Command Chief General David Petraeus has warned that any Mumbai type terror strike in India would certainly ‘re-ignite’ hostility between the two nuclear powered nations.
Testifying before the US Senate Armed Services Committee, General Petraeus said any significant terror strike in India would severely dent efforts to reduce strategic tensions prevailing between India and Pakistan.
General Petraeus pointed out that any major escalation in tensions on Islamabad’s eastern border with India could adversely affect gains made in the country’s northwest and Tribal Areas along the Afghan border.
“A major escalation in these tensions would almost certainly result in the immediate redeployment to the east of Pakistani forces currently deployed to confront militants in the West, risking forfeiture of gains in FATA and the NWFP,” The Daily Times quoted General Petraeus, as saying.
“This suggests a need for India and Pakistan to continue discussions begun on February 25 in order to reduce the strategic tension and the risk of miscalculation between these nuclear states,” he added.
General Petraeus said the United States is working to see an improved Indo-Pak relation and it firmly believes that both countries should continue the peace talks despite there being certain provocations. (ANI)
Islamabad, Mar.18 (ANI): A day after the kidnapped five-year-old British boy Sahil Saeed was found abandoned by his kidnappers, five people were detained in Spain and France in connection with the abduction.
Confirming the arrests, the Spanish Interior Ministry said that a ransom of 80,000 pounds was paid in Paris for Sahil’s safe release.
According to the Spanish newspaper, El Pais, two among those arrested belonged to Pakistan and a Romanian woman, who is believed to have collected the ransom in Paris, was also nabbed.
The newspaper quoted police officials, as saying that two ‘collaborators’ were also arrested during a raid on an apartment in Paris.
Meanwhile, a British High Commission spokesman said that Sahil would be handed over to his father as soon as he reaches Pakistan from Britain.
Sahil’s family members had rejected any ransom being paid for his safe return, however officials are investigating the possibility of a massive amount being paid to abductors to settle a ‘long-standing debt.
Reports regarding the involvement of family members in the abduction have also been denounced by Sahil’s mother, Akila Naqqash.
“It is a lot of rubbish to us. We just heard what has been said on the news. We don’t know anything about it. We have had the full support of the police, churches, mosques, Pakistani government and authorities over there,” she said soon after news regarding Sahil’s return was flashed in the media.
Sahil, who was kidnapped by armed robbers while he was on a visit to his grand mother’s house in Jhelum in Pakistan’s Punjab province, was found abandoned in a field in Gujrat district on Tuesday. (ANI)
Islamabad, Mar.18 (ANI): In what can certainly be described as a noble gesture, Pakistan Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has donated his all body parts and organs.
Speaking after signing a bill to regulate transplant of human organs in the country, Zardari announced that he was donating his whole body after his life.
Zardari said he has taken the decision in accordance with the former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s philosophy of ‘living for others.’
Seeking public support to counter the illegal human organ trade in the country, he said no law could be effective without people’s support.
The bill signed by Zardari has made any unauthorised organ transplants punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment, The Daily Times reports.
It also has a provision for a regulatory mechanism, including a high-level federal monitoring authority as well as the formation of evaluation committees for the removal, storage and transplantation of human organs and tissues for therapeutic purposes. (ANI)
Islamabad, Mar.18 (ANI): Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani may soon appoint former PML-Q leader, and one-time Musharraf loyalist Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat as the country’s finance minister.
According to talks doing the rounds in Pakistan, Hayat is expected to take oath within the next 48 hours, as he has already had separate talks both Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari.
But what is most noticeable is that Hayat is managing a massive hedge fund in Dubai of over one billion dollars which is apparently owned by India’s Ambanis.
The hedge fund is called New Silk Route Partners (NRS) and is 1.4 billion US dollars fund owned by the Ambanis with some local partners in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Hayat had served as the Privatisation Minister in Musharraf’s regime, during which he was involved in the infamous privatisation deal of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL).
The big question is how would Hayat look after Pakistan’s already sluggish finance when he could not even safeguard the national interest in one multi-billion dollar deal, The Daily Times said. (ANI)
Islamabad, March 17 (DPA) Pakistan has signed a deal with Iran that would lead to the construction of a crucial gas pipeline, officials said Wednesday.
The pipeline would carry 750 million cubic feet of gas from Iran’s South Pars gas field when it is completed by 2015.
Minister for Petroleum Syed Naveed Qamar expressed jubilation over the deal and termed it as an “historic achievement”.
“It is a milestone toward meeting energy needs of the country,” a statement from the Petroleum Ministry quoted Qamar as saying.
Under the Heads of Agreement signed on Tuesday between Islamabad and Tehran, Pakistan is allowed to charge a transit fee if and when India joins the project.
The pipeline was originally proposed to extend to India, which has been reluctant to go ahead with the project apparently under pressure from Washington that wants to economically isolate Iran over nuclear issue.
The project’s original cost was estimated to be $7.6 billion. But by excluding the Indian portion of the pipeline, the expected expenditures are being revised.
The pipeline is crucial for Pakistan which has seen prolonged gas outages in the winter and power-cuts in summer in recent years.
Qamar said he hoped work on the project would be started soon so that gas supplies to Pakistan could start on time.
Islamabad, March 17 (IANS) Pakistan and the US will hold a strategic dialogue in Washington March 24 to discuss the war against terrorism, bilateral ties and the US assistance in the fields of development and energy, a media report Wednesday said.
The two countries will also discuss ways and means to pull Pakistan out of its ongoing energy crisis, Geo TV said.
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi will represent Pakistan at the talks, with Water and Power Minister Parvez Ashraf also being member of the delegation.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is likely to lead the US delegation at the talks.