Nuclear-armed Foes Pakistan, India Talk Peace Over Lunch

Nuclear-armed Foes Pakistan, India Talk Peace Over Lunch

Reuters
April 7, 2012

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stood together in New Delhi on Sunday, adding weight to peace efforts by the nuclear-armed foes with the first visit by a Pakistani head of state to India in seven years.

Relations have warmed since Pakistan promised its neighbour most favoured nation trade status last year, although a $10 million bounty offered by Washington for a Pakistani Islamist blamed for the 2008 attacks on Mumbai has stirred old grievances.

The leaders discussed Kashmir, theatre of two of three wars between India and Pakistan, as well as terrorism and trade during a 40-minute meeting on their own before sharing lunch, India's Foreign Secretary Rajan Mathai told reporters.

"We would like to have better relations with India. We have spoken on all topics that we could have spoken about and we are hoping to meet on Pakistani soil very soon," Zardari told a briefing as they emerged from Singh's residence.

Singh said he hoped to make his first visit to Pakistan at a convenient date.

"Relations between India and Pakistan should become normal. That's our common desire," he said. "We have a number of issues and we are willing to find tactical, pragmatic solutions to all those issues and that's the message that president Zardari and I would wish to convey."

Zardari then headed to the shrine of a revered Sufi Muslim saint, Ajmer Sharif in Ajmer, seen as a symbol of harmony between South Asia's often competing religions.

On his first visit to India as part of the 40-member delegation, Zardari's son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, stood behind the leaders, in a sign of his growing role in politics.

Mathai said Singh offered Zardari India's help in finding 124 Pakistani soldiers and 11 civilians engulfed by an avalanche on Saturday near the 6,000-metre-high (18,500-foot) Siachen glacier in Kashmir - known as the world's highest battlefield.

Zardari thanked Singh but did not immediately respond to the offer to help rescue teams, backed by helicopters and sniffer dogs combing an area one-km (half a mile) wide with snow up to 80 feet (25 metres) deep. Hundreds have died at Siachen over the years, mainly from the inhospitable conditions.

A foreign ministry source said the timing of any visit by Singh to Pakistan will depend on issues including a conflict over the oil-rich Sir Creek river estuary, one of their longest running disputes.

MUMBAI ATTACK

Singh told Zardari it was imperative to bring to justice the perpetrators of a 2008 attack on India's financial capital, Mumbai - a three-day gun and bomb rampage by 10 Pakistani militants that left 166 dead and derailed the peace process.

Talks only resumed last year.

Singh raised the continued freedom of Hafiz Saeed, the Islamist suspected of masterminding the attack. Saeed will be discussed again at a forthcoming meeting between home ministry officials, Mathai said.

India is furious Pakistan has not detained Saeed, despite handing over evidence against him. Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Friday that anyone with concrete proof to prosecute Saeed should present it to the courts.

Relaxed visa rules will be signed at the same meeting of officials. Pakistan is expected to formally designate India as a most-favoured-nation later this year.

With Zardari and Singh both suffering major domestic problems, prospects are low for fixing the Kashmir stand-off.

Lasting Pakistan-India peace would go a long way to smoothing a perilous transition in Afghanistan as most NATO combat forces prepare to leave by the end of 2014.

India and Pakistan fought their most recent war in 1999, shortly after both sides declared they possessed nuclear weapons. Hundreds died on the defacto border in Kashmir before Pakistani troops and militants were forced to withdraw.

Born in a village in what is now Pakistan, Singh has pushed for peace during his two terms in office, but his efforts were knocked off track by the 2008 ouster of former President Pervez Musharraf, with whom he had built trust, and the Mumbai raids.

Informal meetings, during international cricket matches, or in this case before Zardari's pilgrimage to the Sufi shrine, have become the hallmark of Singh's diplomacy.

In November, Singh met Gilani in the Maldives and promised to open a new chapter in their history. Hopes are focused on boosting trade and tourism, and resolving the conflict at the Siachen glacier and Sir Creek in the west.

Musharraf, the last Pakistani head of state to visit India in 2005, has said both issues were as good as fixed while he was in office.

China, India and Russia Have Bilateral Agreements with Iran to Buy Oil; U.S. 'Disgusted' by Russia, China Veto of Syria Resolution

Bible prophecy describes the battle of Armageddon as a coalition of nations that will almost certainly include China and Russia and several Muslim nations of the Middle East. Every day, the evidence mounts that China will be tightly leagued with Russia and many of the Islamic nations in a powerful anti-Israel political and military alliance from which the 200-million-man army described in the book of Revelation (Rev. 9:16) will ultimately come. - The Sixth Trumpet War of Revelation 9

U.S. 'Disgusted' by Russia, China Veto of Syria Resolution

February 4, 2012

ABC OTUS News - The United States is "disgusted" by Russia and China's decision to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution today that called for an immediate end to the violence in Syria, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said today.

The Security Council vote today came on one of the bloodiest days of the popular uprising in Syray, as President Bashar al Assad's security forces launched a withering artillery assault on the city of Homs that has reportedly left 200 to 400 dead.

Though they were the only negative votes in a 13 to 2 vote, Russia and China's veto power as permanent members of the Security Council killed the resolution drafted by Arab and European countries.

The vetoes came after a week of intense negotiations to gain Russian support for a resolution it had opposed from the start. The resolution supported an Arab League plan that called for an immediate end to the violence in Syria and a political solution to the crisis. Russia was opposed to the resolution because of concerns that it could leave an opening for a foreign intervention against one of its loyal client states.

The vetoes drew harsh criticism from Security Council members that supported the resolution and who had amended it several times to ease those concerns, rewording language about the transition of power and watering down the possibility of future sanctions against the Assad regime.

"The United States is disgusted that a couple of members of this Council continue to prevent us from fulfilling our sole purpose," U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said.

"For months this Council has been held hostage by a couple of members," she said, referring to Russia and China, who she said had been "delaying and stripping bare any text to force Assad to stop his actions."

Without referring to Russia by name, she said the vetoes were "even more shameful" given that Russia has continued to sell weapons to to Syria. She called the vetoes "unforgivable" and said "any further blood that flows will be on their hands."

In brief remarks to the Council, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Russia actively supports an end to the violence in Syria, but that the resolution did not "accurately reflect the real state of affairs" in Syria and "sent an unbalanced signal to the parties." Churkin was speaking about armed opposition groups that have also been conducting violent attacks against the Assad regime in Syria.

He once again cited Russian concerns about "regime change" by "influential members of the international community who have been undermining the possibility of a settlement in Syria."

French Ambassador Gerard Araud said the vetoes were a "sad day for the UN Security Council … a sad day for democracy and a sad day for Syrians. … Hundreds of Syrians are dying and it is no longer possible to wait. "

Peter Wittig, the German ambassador to the United Nations criticized the vetoes particularly for having come on "one of bloodiest days of the Arab spring" and the 30th anniversary of the massacre in Hama, Syria ordered by Assad's father that resulted in 20,000 dead.

"This is the real scandal," Wittig said. "Afraid this will spur further violence and make it difficult to reach a political solution."

British Ambassador to the U.N. Mark Lyall said Russia and China should "ask themselves how many more deaths they are prepared to tolerate." He said the negotiations had "removed every possible excuse" for voting against the resolution. He also said that the United Kingdom and other countries would continue their efforts to stop the violence in Syria.

Li Baodong, China's Ambassador to the UN told Council members that China voted against the resolution because it would "further complicate the situation" in Syria.

He also said that China supported the Russian delegation's last minute calls for a delay on the vote as well as amendments proposed by Russia that were not taken up by the Council.

Iran Turns Embargo Tables: To Pass Law Halting All Crude Exports

Zero Hedge
January 27, 2012

Iran is the fifth largest producers of oil in the world.

In what is likely a long overdue move, Iran has finally decided to give Europe a harsh lesson in game theory. Instead of letting Euro-area politicians score brownie points at its expense by threatening to halt imports and cut off the Iranian economy, the Iranian government will instead propose a bill calling for an immediate halt to oil deliveries to Europe.

The move, with most reports citing the Iranian news agency Mehr, has come about in response to the EU agreement to impose sanctions against Iran, which were announced earlier this week. And why not? After all if Europe is indeed serious, sooner or later Iran will be cut off but in the meantime experience significant policy uncertainty, which is precisely what the flipflops on the ground need. The one thing that Europe, however is forgetting, is that all that whopping 0.8 Mb/d in imports will simply find a new buyer. Quickly.

So with China, India and Russia already having bilateral agreements with Iran in place, we are confident that said buyer will have a contract signed, sealed and delivered within an hour of the proposed bill's passage.

Furthermore, as SocGen speculated, the fact that Europe will be even more bottlenecked in its crude supplies (good luck Saudi Arabia with that imaginary excess capacity), and which just may force the IEA to release some more of that strategic petroleum reserve (and thus give JPM some more free money on the replenishment arbitrage) will send Brent to $125-150 - something which Iran will be delighted by.

That is of course unless some "experts" discover that Iran may or may not have a complete arsenal of shark with fricking nuclear warheads attached to their heads (despite what Paneta has already said) which gives the US the green light for a full blown incursion, which in turn will send oil over $200, and the world economy into a global coordinated re-depression.

From Spiegel:

"If this bill is passed, the government will be forced to stop selling oil to Europe before the actual implementation of their sanctions," said Emad Hosseini, spokesman for the Iranian parliament's energy commission, reportedly said. The bill is set to become law on Sunday.

The EU sanctions allow for oil deliveries from Iran until July 1. Any pre-empting of this timescale by Tehran could prove problematic for countries like Italy, Greece and Spain, who would need to urgently find new suppliers.

China, meanwhile, a major importer of Iranian oil, has also criticized the EU sanctions. The Xinhua news agency quoted the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday as saying: "To blindly pressure and impose sanctions on Iran are not constructive approaches."

Many members of the EU are now heavily dependent on Iranian oil. Some 500,000 barrels arrive in Europe every day from Iran, with southern European countries consuming most of it. Greece is the most exposed, receiving a third of all its oil imports from Iran, but Italy too depends on Iran for 13 percent of its oil needs. If this source were to dry up abruptly, the economic conditions in the two struggling countries could become even worse.

Already on Wednesday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned of the economic consequences of the EU's planned embargo. Stopping deliveries from the world's fifth largest producer could drive up the price of oil by 20 to 30 percent.

Perhaps instead of doing its best at crippling the world energy markets, and crushing the global economy, Europe should stick to bailing itself out, and other activities in which it has extensive experience.

India-Pakistan Conflict

Gates: Al-Qaeda Aims to Start India-Pakistan War

By Jason Ditz, AntiWar.com
January 20, 2010

While praising India for not attacking Pakistan immediately following the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned India could not be expected to show such restraint if another attack happened.

Which led Secretary Gates to conclude that al-Qaeda is attempting to spark a war between India and its long-standing rival Pakistan. Tensions have continued to grow between the two nations since 2008, with India’s Army Chief declaring his nation ready to fight both Pakistan and its ally China at the same time: a three-way war which would involve 40 percent of the worlds population.

Moreover, Secretary Gates claimed that al-Qaeda secretly exercises control over every militant group in the region, and that a “victory for one is a victory for all.” The US certainly has shown difficulty distinguishing between militant factions, but Gates provided no evidence that they were actually all part of a single “syndicate,” as he put it.

The Mumbai attack was blamed on the Lashkar-e Taiba (LeT), a militant group of Kashmiri separatists. LeT was quick to deny the charges. Links between LeT and al-Qaeda are unclear at best, and officials have used the fact that both groups operated in Afghanistan before the 2001 US invasion as evidence of ties.

U.S. Defense Secretary Says Al Qaeda Seeks to Trigger India-Pakistan War

By Yochi J. Dreazen, The Wall Street Journal
January 20, 2010

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said al Qaeda is working with an array of local militant groups to destabilize South Asia and trigger a war between India and Pakistan, an indication of growing U.S. fears about new terror attacks throughout the volatile region.

Mr. Gates said al Qaeda had formed alliances with the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban as well as with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani-based group that carried out the attacks in Mumbai in 2008 that left more than 160 dead.

The American defense chief, who is in the middle of a three-day visit to India, said the al Qaeda-led "syndicate" is trying "to destabilize not just Afghanistan, not just Pakistan, but potentially the whole region."

Speaking to reporters here, Mr. Gates said the Islamist groups were focusing particular attention on India and Pakistan, regional rivals who have fought three major wars since 1947. He said that Pakistani-based militants were trying to carry out strikes within India in hopes of provoking an Indian counterattack that could escalate into a new conflict between the two nations.

Mr. Gates said the groups also posed an "existential" threat to Pakistan and warned that India's government—which refrained from reprisal attacks on Pakistan after the Mumbai assault— wasn't likely to exercise similar restraint if new attacks occurred on its territory.

"I think it's not unreasonable to assume that Indian patience would be limited were there to be further attacks," he said.

India-Pakistan Conflict

Indian Arms Found in South Waziristan

UPI
November 3, 2009

Islamabad, Pakistan - Islamabad will handle claims that Indian-made weapons were uncovered in military operations in South Waziristan through diplomatic channels, officials said.

Pakistani security forces claim to have uncovered a sizable weapons and ammunition cache in hideouts used allegedly by insurgents in South Waziristan.

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Qamar Zaman Kaira told reporters the Islamabad government would seek a political resolution to the issue, Pakistan's daily newspaper The Nation reports.

"The government would effectively take up this issue with India through diplomatic channels," he said.

Tensions between the two nuclear-armed rivals intensified following attacks in Mumbai carried out by Pakistani-based militants in November 2008.

The Pakistani military launched a major military offensive targeting Taliban and other insurgents in their strongholds in the tribal belts along the volatile border with Afghanistan in October.

The Taliban vowed revenge for the death of their leader Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed by a U.S. airstrike in August. The Taliban claimed responsibility for a series of high-profile attacks throughout Pakistan in recent weeks.

Pakistani military forces claim to have taken control of several insurgent strongholds in recent days. The military announced Tuesday more than 20 insurgents were killed in fighting in South Waziristan in the past 24 hours.

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India-Pakistan Conflict

India and Pakistan in 2002

By Carol Moore
Originally Published in 2004

India and Pakistan have repeatedly threatened nuclear war against each other, most seriously in the last few years. In late December 2002 Pakistan’s president, General Pervez Musharraf, addressing Air Force veterans in Karachi, said:

The last year “personally” conveyed a clear “message” to Prime Minister Vajpayee, “through every international leader who came to Pakistan,” namely, that Indian troops “should not expect a conventional war from Pakistan” if they “moved a single step across the international border or the Line of Control.”

In response Indian Defense Minister George Fernandez said:

“We can take a bomb or two, or more. When we respond, there will be no Pakistan.”

About the same time former Army Chief of Staff Aslam Beg, then heading a right-wing Pakistani think tank said:

“Our policy of deterrence is India-specific. No matter who comes for us, Israel, the United States or India we will take on India. If someone is thinking of taking on Pakistan, they should know we will take on India.”

And despite subsequent detente between the two nations during the remainder of 2003, as late as fall 2003, Ariel Sharon visited India, worrying Pakistan that he was once again proposing India do a surgical strike against Pakistani nuclear assets. Once any such Indian-Pakistani nuclear exchange began, there are a number of scenarios by which it could escalate into accidental or intentional world nuclear war.

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