Monday, November 28, 2011

Pakistan steps up rhetoric over lethal Nato raid


ISLAMABAD: Pakistan vowed no more “business as usual” with the United States after Nato strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, but stopped short on Monday of threatening to break the troubled alliance altogether.
Nato and the United States had sought to limit the fallout of Saturday’s attack as Pakistan shut vital supply routes to the 140,000 foreign troops serving in Afghanistan and ordered a review of its US alliance.
Washington has backed a full inquiry and sent its condolences, while Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Sunday voiced regret over the “tragic, unintended” killings, but did not issue a full apology.
In response Pakistan has dug in its heels, reacting furiously to what it called an “unprovoked” strike, worsening US-Pakistani relations already in crisis after the killing in May of Osama bin Laden north of Islamabad by US special forces.
In an interview with CNN, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said incidents such as at the Nato cross-border attack further alienated the Pakistani masses, leaving his government isolated in its unpopular alliance with the US.
“Business as usual will not be there, therefore we have to have something bigger so that to satisfy my nation, the entire country,” he said in English.
Asked whether the US-Pakistani alliance can continue, he replied: “That can continue on mutual respect and mutual interest”, adding that both were currently lacking.
“If I can’t protect the sovereignty of my country how can we say it’s a mutual respect and mutual interest?”
It remains unclear what happened at the dead of night in some of the most hostile terrain on Earth. Afghan and Western officials reportedly said the Pakistanis opened fire first. Pakistan insists the attack was unprovoked.
Nato and Afghan forces “were fired on from a Pakistani army base”, a Western official told the Wall Street Journal. “It was a defensive action.” An Afghan border police commander, speaking on condition of anonymity as officials have been told not to speak to media before an investigation is completed, said Nato troops hardly ever open fire unless they are attacked.
“To me it’s almost clear that they (Isaf) came under fire from that area. Without that they would have not returned fire,” he told AFP.
He said Taliban, Afghan security forces as well Pakistani security forces have posts very close to each other due to the rugged, mountainous terrain.
“This is not true. They are making up excuses. And by the way, what are their losses, casualties?” Major General Athar Abbas, Pakistan’s chief military spokesman, wrote to AFP in a text message.
He later told Pakistani television channel Geo that 72 Pakistani soldiers have been killed and 250 wounded by fire from across the Afghan border over the last three years.
Asked about expressions of regret by Nato he said: “We do not accept it because such kind of attacks have been taking place in the past… Our leadership will decide about further reaction.” British newspaper The Daily Telegraph on Monday quoted wounded survivors of the raid, who insisted they were victims of an unprovoked attack.
In retaliation, Islamabad has blocked Nato convoys from crossing into Afghanistan, ordered a review of its alliance with the US and is mulling whether to boycott a key conference on Afghanistan next month.
Nato says that for now its troops will not be affected by the disruption.
Hundreds of enraged Pakistanis took to the streets for a third day on Monday, blocking roads to demand that Pakistan end its troubled alliance with the United States.
Key ally China, seen by Islamabad as a crucial counterweight to American influence, said it was “deeply shocked” and called for an investigation.
On the Fox News Sunday talk show, US lawmakers vented frustration over Pakistan, with Republican Senator Jon Kyl demanding Islamabad cooperate with the United States in order to maintain billions of dollars in financial aid.
But John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, laid bare the dilemma for Washington in handling nuclear-armed Pakistan, which has received up to $20 billion in US aid over the last 10 years.
“As long as that country has nuclear weapons that could fall into the hands of radicals and be a threat worldwide, they have incredible leverage,” he said.

Pakistani rupee hits record low of 88.04 to USD


KARACHI: The Pakistani rupee hit a record low on Monday, touching 88.04 to the dollar on increased import payments and negative regional sentiment on currencies.
The rupee was trading at 88.00/10 to the dollar at 10:13 a.m. (0513 GMT), compared with Friday’s close of 87.75/80.
Its previous low point was in September at 87.92.
“So far there’s been about one (import) payment of around $50 million to $60 million, but there is generally cautious to weak sentiment about currencies of the region,” said a dealer at a foreign bank.
According to a poll conducted by Reuters last week, investors have grown more bearish on most emerging Asian currencies in the last two weeks as Europe’s debt crisis deepens.
Dealers said there was also some pessimism regarding the country’s economy, which put the rupee under further pressure.
Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves fell to $16.96 billion in the week ending Nov. 18, after hitting a record $18.31 billion in the week ending July 30.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also assessed that the outlook for Pakistan’s economy for the current year ending June 2012 was “challenging”, dealers said.
In a statement last week, the IMF said that ongoing security concerns were likely to limit capital inflows.

Imran reiterates holding Karachi public meeting


KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan on Monday said he would hold a public meeting in Karachi on December 25 “come what may”, DawnNews reported.
Addressing a press conference in Sukkur after the inclusion of two nephews of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani in his party, Khan claimed that his opponents would face more blows in the near future.
He said the country’s educated and intellectual class was joining his party.
Khan lamented that the country had almost defaulted because of theft and corruption and said the right leadership would rectify all wrongs.

Pakistan fuel suppliers protest against Nato attack

ISLAMABAD: The main Pakistani association that delivers fuel to Nato forces in Afghanistan said it would not resume supplies anytime soon in protest against an air attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at the weekend.
Nawab Sher Afridi, general secretary of the All Pakistan Oil Tanker Owners Association, said the association would reconsider only if the Islamabad government and the military accept an apology for the incident.

Pakistan a responsible nuclear state: FO


ISLAMABAD: The foreign office on Monday termed the statement of Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal as baseless and stated that Pakistan was a responsible nuclear state, DawnNews reported.
A statement issued by the foreign office said there was no truth in Qureshi’s statement regarding Pakistan’s nuclear program.
After the passage of the 18th Amendment, the transfer of powers took place and the National Commander Authority was now functioning under the prime minister, the statement said, adding that no compromise would be made on Pakistan’s defence system.
The statement said an effective system was in place to protect Pakistan’s nuclear assets.

Pakistanis demand end to US alliance


ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of Pakistanis called on Islamabad Monday to break off its alliance with the United States and get out of the war on Al Qaeda as protests against a lethal Nato strike pushed into a third day.
Twenty-four Pakistani soldiers were killed in the cross-border attack early Saturday by Nato helicopters and fighter jets.
Members of civil society, lawyers, traders and students organised the rallies, still relatively small, in major cities of the country of 167 million people, where opposition to the US alliance is rampant.
Lawyers went on strike across the country, demonstrating outside court buildings, chanting slogans against Nato and the United States, officials from bar associations across the country said.
“We marched at the Islamabad High Court premises and expressed our anger against this attack, none of us went to the courts today,” Ashraf Gujjar, president of Islamabad High Court Bar Association, told AFP after one rally.
“The government should cut Nato supplies permanently, take back military bases from the US and plead that this cases violates the borders in the UN Security Council,” he quoted from a resolution passed by lawyers.
In Peshawar, the main city in northwest Pakistan where an Al Qaeda and Taliban-led insurgency is rife, several hundred students blocked a main road, chanting “Death to US” and “Quit the war on terror”, an AFP reporter saw.
Scores of tribesmen also gathered in Mohmand, the tribal district where the soldiers were killed, to protest against the attack and demand that the government change its pro-US policy, Khalid Khan, an administration official in the district told AFP.
Some 200 lawyers blocked the national highway to the east of Karachi, chanting slogans in the favour of Pakistani army, police said.
In Multan, Jamatud Dawa, blacklisted by the United Nations as a terror group, gathered a crowd of several hundred, burning an effigy of US President Barack Obama and US flags, an AFP photographer said.
In Pakistani-administered Kashmir, around 600 people in the town of Garhi Dupatta joined the relatives of a soldier killed in the attack, and chanted slogans against the US, police official Ishtiaq Gilani told AFP.
“The government must retaliate and should suspend the relations with the US until there is a fair and free investigation,” Zafar Iqbal, 25, the brother of fallen soldier Tahir Iqbal told AFP from the protest.

Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan fight opium smuggling


Afghan Minister of Counter-Narcotics Zarar Ahmed Moqbel Osmani, second right, speaks as Pakistan's Minister of Counter- Narcotics Haji Khuda Bux Rajjar, left, Iran's Interior Minister and the Secretary General of Drug Control Headquarters Mustafa Mohammad Majjar, second left, and Yury Fedotov, right, under Secretary general and executive director of United Nation Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) are seen during a press conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Nov. 28, 2011.
KABUL: Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan on Monday agreed to bolster regional cooperation to combat drug smuggling at a time when the cultivation of illicit opium poppy is increasing.
Afghanistan provides about 90 per cent of the world’s opium, the raw ingredient used to make heroin, and the UN and Afghan government have long tried to wean the country off the lucrative crop. Money from the sale of opium is also used to fuel the insurgency, helping to buy weapons and equipment for the Taliban.
The largest areas of opium poppy cultivation are in the violent south of the country, where it can be hard to make money on legal crops and where criminal networks exist to buy and sell the poppy crop.
“Despite a decade of initiatives by the Afghans and international community, opium production is increasing,” said Yuri Fedotov, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
“This situation can’t continue.”
Most of the opium from Afghanistan is shipped through Iran and Pakistan, and the three countries have for the past four years been involved in a UN-sponsored initiative to set up joint planning cells in each country to coordinate their efforts. They pledged to bolster joint operations targeting smugglers and the networks they use to get the drug to the international marketplace.
“Iran is a transit route and the production of drugs in Afghanistan is on the increase,” said Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najar, who heads the country’s counter-narcotics department.
“The reason is high demand.”
Ministers in charge of counter-narcotics for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran met in Kabul on Monday at a UN organised gathering.
The UN has said that insecurity and rising opium prices have driven Afghan farmers to increase cultivation of the illicit opium poppy by 7 per cent in 2011, despite a major push by the Afghan government and international allies. Production in Afghanistan had dropped significantly in 2010 because of a plant disease that killed off much of the crop.
Revenue from the drug has helped fund insurgents, and the number of people invested in the underground opium economy has made it difficult for the Afghan government to establish its presence in opium-heavy regions.
Other countries in the region have also expressed worries about increasing production. The Russian government recently said about 2 million of its citizens are addicted to opium and heroin – most of which comes from Afghanistan. It has repeatedly called on Nato forces to do more to stop Afghan production.
A report last month showed that opium cultivation is spreading to new parts Afghanistan, a troubling trend as international troops are trying to stabilize the country so that they can hand over security responsibilities to the government by the end of 2014.
Much of this is attributed to soaring prices. Dry opium costs about 43 per cent more than it did a year ago.

Nato attack could hurt Afghanistan cooperation: Athar Abbas

Army spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas. 



ISLAMABAD: A Nato cross-border air attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at the weekend could hurt cooperation on Afghanistan, Pakistan’s army spokesman said on Monday.
“This could have serious consequences in the level and extent of our cooperation,” Major General Athar Abbas told Reuters.
The military also denied reports that Nato forces in Afghanistan came under fire before launching the attack.
“This is not true. They are making up excuses. What are their losses, casualties?” said Abbas in a text message.
A report, citing Afghan and western officials, had said that fire from a Pakistani military outpost into Afghanistan prompted the air strikes.
Abbas said Nato forces’ regret on the incident was not enough and said the incident could result in serious consequences.
He recalled that such activities had been carried out in the past, adding that he did not think these would be tolerated anymore.
Abbas said the top leadership would decide how to further take up the incident.