And now Krishna clears ISI of terror charges in India

— disapproves Home Secy’s remark on ISI’s role in Mumbai attacks

— snubs Pillai over irresponsible statement

From Christina Palmer

NEW DELHI—Indian External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Wednesday rued that home secretary G K Pillai’s remarks about the role of the ISI in 26/11 attack were made on the eve of his talks with Pakistan.

“Mr Pillai could have waited till I came back to issue a statement. Perhaps it would have been wiser if that statement had not been made just on the eve of my visit,” Krishna said in an interview to a television channel, making public his displeasure with Pillai for the first time.

Pillai had commented that the Mumbai carnage of November 28, 2008, was planned by the ISI “from beginning to end”. “When two foreign ministers are meeting after the Mumbai attack, there was a special significance for this meeting,” Krishna said.

“Everyone who was privy to whatever was happening in government of India ought to have known that the right kind of atmosphere from India’s side should have been created for the talks to go on in a very normal manner, but unfortunately this episode happened,” he added.

“Well, I have had some discussions with the prime minister,” Krishna replied when asked if he had conveyed his dissatisfaction over Pillai’s remarks to the prime minister.

After his talks with Krishna in Islamabad on July 15, Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said at a joint press conference that the remarks made by India’s home secretary were not “helpful” for better relations when a journalist asked him about Pakistan’s action against Hafeez Saeed, the suspected mastermind of the Mumbai attack.

The next day, Krishna told reporters in Delhi that there was no comparison with Saeed and Pillai as the former was crying jihad against India.

Krishna’s criticism of Pillai has brought out in the open differences of perception within the government over engagement with Pakistan. At a seminar in New Delhi on Tuesday, Menon had endorsed Pillai’s remarks by pointing out links between the official establishment and the existing intelligence agencies. Krishna, however, was also critical of Qureshi’s abrasive style in his interaction with the media.

“We should understand the spirit of Thimphu and spirit of Thimphu was to make earnest effort to bring about reconciliation between two countries and I do not want that spirit to be eroded even by a remotest possible way,” he said.

“I think we can put forward any contention that a country can face in a most forceful way but there has to be dignity, there has to be civility and civility is certainly no weakness,” he added.

Even when Krishna was in Islamabad on July 16, Qureshi held a press conference with Pakistani journalists and criticised India for its selectively focusing on terror and sidelining other vital bilateral issues like Kashmir.

Indo-Ozzie spat continues: Another Indian beaten up

An Indian was attacked by six youths here resulting in serious facial injuries after he got involved in a brawl trying to save a compatriot from being beaten up, the latest in a series of assaults on the community in Australia.

24-year-old Bharat Thapar is awaiting surgery in a local hospital following the last night incident which took place in a Melbourne suburb.

Thapar saw another Indian, Ratan, being bashed up last night near Carnish Road in Oakleigh South, Sumeet, a friend of the victim, said. “He stopped his car and came out to stop the fight. But the youths instead took on him.”

“Bharat has received some serious face injuries and he is now waiting for a surgery as advised by doctors in Monash Hospital where he is admitted to,” Sumeet said.

Sumeet said that Thapar appears to have suffered multiple fractures in jaw which doctors intend to operate on as early as possible.

While police arrived on the scene and called an ambulance for the victim, they allowed the attackers to leave, he said.

Thapar moved to Australia three years ago from Panipat in Haryana.
The last night attack on Thapar is the latest in a slew of assaults against Indians in Australia, mostly in Melbourne.

More than 100 attacks have been reported against Indians in this country since June last year. Another Indian student attacked in Australia
Melbourne, Jul 20 (PTI)

Afghanistan strategic partnership with Pakistan

KABUL — At the Pakistani Embassy in Kabul these days, a visitor is likely to be handed a booklet about the two countries by Ambassador Mohammad Sadiq titled “The Conjoined Twins.”

But unlike in other periods in the fraught Afghanistan-Pakistan relationship, when they might have wanted surgical separation, both sides say they are happy to be locked together.

“Pakistan and Afghanistan are brothers,” Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, said in Kabul on Monday. “We have improved our relations considerably.”

A transit trade deal reached by the two neighbors Sunday is the latest milestone in a rapidly changing relationship long characterized by distrust and ill will — and one that could have broad consequences for how they confront their shared Taliban insurgency. Officials from both countries now speak with marked optimism about the prospects for collaboration.

“It’s a paradigm shift,” Sadiq said in an interview last week. “We see a lot more confidence in each other, a lot more cooperation in very sensitive fields.”

“We now have a better relationship with Pakistan,” a senior Afghan official said. “There is a new willingness on both sides that we should resolve the [Taliban] problem. We are both suffering from this menace.”

Even before Pakistan agreed to allow Afghan trucks to transport goods through its country to the Indian border, a potential boon for Afghan agricultural exports, several signs pointed to a thaw in the rivalry between the wary neighbors, who share one of the world’s most volatile borders.

Critics of Afghan President Hamid Karzai remain skeptical, however, that Pakistan will commit to destroying elements of the Taliban network, which senior U.S. officials think is supported by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency to some degree.

“We know that Mr. Karzai is in a very dangerous game that he cannot win. It’s impossible,” said Saleh Mohammad Registani, an Afghan lawmaker. “This game is controlled by Pakistan.”
Strategic partnership

Pakistani officials trace the improvement in ties to 2008, after the departure of President Pervez Musharraf, who had a troubled relationship with Karzai. The next year, Pakistan stayed neutral during the political crisis that followed Afghanistan’s fraud-marred presidential election, Pakistani officials said. Karzai blamed the West for undermining his chances.

Other officials familiar with Karzai’s thinking say he also has lost faith in NATO forces’ ability to defeat the insurgency and has turned to Pakistan to help broker a deal to end the conflict.

Last year, Karzai agreed to allow Afghan students to accept scholarships to study in Pakistan — a move that will push the number of Afghan graduate students in Pakistan from about 6,000 to 8,000, Sadiq said. Three weeks ago, Karzai agreed to send Afghan military officers across the border to be trained by the Pakistani military. Qureshi, Pakistan’s foreign minister, told reporters in Kabul that the first batch of 20 Afghan officers would leave for Pakistan soon.

“President Karzai used to tell them, half in jest and half seriously, ‘I’m not going to send students or military officers to Pakistan as long as you send suicide bombers into Afghanistan,’ ” said a former diplomat who worked in Kabul. “Without any assurance that’s not going to happen, he’s given the green light for this.”

There has also been accelerated diplomacy at the highest levels, with Karzai traveling to Islamabad in March and recent visits to Kabul by Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, the head of the Pakistani army, and Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, Pakistan’s intelligence chief, to discuss potential cooperation on jump-starting negotiations with the Taliban.
A friendly ‘facilitator’

Those developments have raised concern that Karzai is moving faster than many Afghans would like to try to broker a political deal that could bring the Taliban back into the government. Some officials in Karzai’s office say they fear that Pakistan might not negotiate sincerely and will use its influence with the Taliban in ways that hurt Afghans.

“It all depends on the Pakistanis — they have to prove their honesty,” one senior Afghan official said. “If they’re not honest, this will erupt.”

Qureshi said Monday that Pakistan wants the modest role of “facilitator.” During Karzai’s visit to Islamabad in March, Pakistani officials asked the Afghan president to develop a “strategic framework” — including proposals for negotiating with the Taliban. They are now waiting for the Afghans “to share their plans and programs with us,” Qureshi said.

“It entirely depends on the Afghan government, what they want us to do. We have no specific agenda,” he said. “In us, they will find friends willing to help.”

Senior NATO officials in Kabul say they are not particularly concerned by Karzai’s push for rapprochement.

“Everyone’s focus at the moment is to help these two countries,” NATO’s senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, Mark Sedwill, told reporters Saturday. “There has been nothing in the dialogue between the two countries with which we’re uncomfortable, and all of us would like to see them working more effectively together.”Afghanistan builds up strategic partnership with Pakistan, By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post Foreign Service, Wednesday, July 21, 2010; A12