A strategic shift in Pakistan’s three-decade old Afghan policy has taken a quiet but effective shape as Islamabad has successfully negotiated a peace plan with Mustafa Zahir Shah, the grandson of late King Zahir Shah, who would play a key role in future political dispensation comprising all ethnic groups.
“It is a strategic coup by Pakistan [...]
Brig Ravi Datt Mehta, IFS officer V. Venkateshwara Rao and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) constables Ajay Pathania and Roop Singh, all killed in the July 7 terror attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, have been awarded “Kirti Chakra” posthumously
Preisent Karzai reciprocated General Kiyani’s visit to Kabul within a week. What is going on. Why did Mr. Karzai visit Pakistan on the heels of President Ahmedinejad’s visit to Afghanistan and right before President Gul’s visit?
A report in the Guardian may give us some insight into the reasons for Mr. Karzai’s visit to Islamabad. Reversing Anti-Americanism: Building US allies in West Asia
Unless more pressure is put on the Afghan government, some British officials predict that Karzai’s proposed loya jirga, or grand peace council, due at the end of next month, will be little more than a PR stunt. “My argument today is that now is the time for the Afghans to pursue a political settlement with as much vigour and energy as we are pursuing the military and civilian effort,” Miliband will say at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to a text of the address seen by the Guardian.
British officials believe that significant Taliban leaders are ready to start talking about a political settlement in which they would sever ties with al-Qaida and put down weapons in return for a role in politics. But there is also concern that opportunities to open a preliminary dialogue are being lost, and that the conflict, which has already cost more than 270 British lives, is being intensified by Kabul’s inefficiency and corruption.
“The Afghans must own, lead and drive such political engagement,” Miliband will say in his speech. “It will be a slow, gradual process. But the insurgents will want to see international support.
“International engagement, for example under the auspices of the UN, may ultimately be required.“
All roads to Kabul Peace lead to Islamabad.
Mr. Karzai’s visit reflects the will of the London Conference where Mr. Karzai was urged to reach out to the Taliban and try to find reconciliation. Mr. Karzai is seen to be moving too slowly on this count. The pressure is on. The UK and the US want to find a face-saving exit from Afghanistan. A coalition government in Kabul would allow the UK and the US to declare victory and leave the Hindu Kush. Post London Pakistan-American Strategic symbiosis leaves Delhi in the cold
Filed under: Afghanistan, Current Affairs, Pak CA 
Turkey has been a real friend of Pakistan. Military and economic cooperation is just the tip of the iceberg. Turkey is helping Pakistan diplomatically and in Islamabad’s hour of need. Turkey was the biggest donor during the Kashmir earthquake, and Turkey has not left the area. It continues to help. Children all over Turkey gather gifts and money for their Pakistani brothers and sisters sending more than $500 million to Pakistani earthquake victims.
Turkey is now building an Islamabad to Istanbul train line worth $20 billion Dollars. This will reduce the time from Islamabad to Istanbul from 14 to 3 days, facilitating trade, commerce, and tourism. Turkey has also assisted Pakistan and Afghanistan improve their relations.
A grand welcome awaits President Gul.
ISLAMABAD: Turkey will continue to support Pakistan, as the friendship between the two countries is historic, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on Wednesday.
He said this while meeting National Assembly (NA) Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza in Ankara. Matters of mutual interest between the two countries and ways to strengthen the bilateral relations were discussed in the meeting. Gul said the Turkish people could never forget the sacrifices of Muslims of the sub-continent during the Turkish independence war and termed Mirza a ‘ role model of the Muslim world.’
The Turkish president said he was looking forward to his forthcoming visit to Pakistan and would bring along a delegation of Turkish businessmen and investors, so that the economic relations between the two countries could be strengthened. Gul paid rich tributes to Benazir Bhutto (late) and also appreciated the leadership of President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.
Dr Fehmida Mirza thanked the Turkish president for his hospitality and appreciated his role in promoting unity in the Muslim world. She informed Gul of the working of the NA and various issues confronting the country and said Pakistan was committed to promotion of peace in the region.
Separately, the NA speaker called on Turkish Grand National Assembly Speaker Mehmet Ali Sahin at the Parliament House in Ankara. Both of them agreed to strengthen the cooperation between the parliaments of the two countries. Dr Mirza informed the speaker about Pakistan’s efforts to combat terrorism and urged the international community to help Pakistan in strengthening its democratic institutions. The NA speaker appreciated Turkey’s role in bringing Pakistan and Afghanistan closer through the trilateral summits held by the three countries and also thanked the Turkish nation for their support to the affectees of the 2005 earthquake in northern Pakistan. National Assembly Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza said that time is running short for developing countries to understand that democracy needs to be strengthened or people of these countries will lose hope in democracy and that would allow dictatorships to flourish. The speaker said that lawmakers of both the countries could play a meaningful role in the region as parliamentary diplomacy could enable the real policy makers to understand each other’s point of view in a better way.
Mehmat Ali Sahin said Turkey is proud of Dr Mirza, as she is the first woman speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan and assured her of Turkey’s support for the economic development of Pakistan.
Also on Wednesday, Murat Merrcan, president of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Grand Turkish Assembly called on Dr Mirza. They discussed the overall political situation of the region and international disputes like the Kashmir problem and the Palestine issue. Dr Fehmida Mirza also visited the Turkish National Education Ministry and met Turkish Education Minister Nimet Cubukcu. Matters relating to promotion of education were discussed in the meeting. National Assembly Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza stressed on the need for improving the literacy rates, which she termed as the true indicators of a nation’s social and economic development. Turkey will continue to support Pakistan, says Abdullah Gul
* NA Speaker Fehmida Mirza calls on Turkish president, speaker of Turkish Grand National Assembly. Staff Report
Turkey established diplomatic relations soon after the independence of Pakistan in 1947 and bilateral relations became increasingly close important owing to cultural, religious and geopolitical links between the two countries. Turkey and Pakistan are founding members of the Economic Cooperation Organization(formerly the RCD) and part of the Developing 8 Countries (D-8) organization.
Turkey under the new goverment is building economic ties with Pakistan, so that it can create a strong ECO and that the bonds of friendship are stronger.. Both nations have worked to negotiate a preferential trading agreement, aiming to considerably increase trade and investments, especially in transport, telecommunications, manufacturing, tourism and other industries.Both governments have sought to increase the volume of bilateral trade from $690 million to more than $1 billion by 2010. A $20 Billion train linelinking Islamabad to Istanbul is being built at a cost of $20 billion. This rail network will further consolidate the neural network between Pakistanis and Turks. Turkey launched a trilateral summit process between the two states and Afghanistan in February 2007 which culiminated in Feb 2010 in the inclusion of Bharat from making decision in Afghanistan.
On 16th of October, the Turkish Prime Minster went to the Turkish nation and asked them “when we needed them, the Pakistani Muslims were there for the Ottoman “khilafat”, today your brothers and sisters need you in their hour or need“. From across the great nation of Turkey, school girls, and old men, student and professionals gave and gave and gave. One girl in New Jersey collect $1500 on her own and then brought us the money. Schools across Turkey collected, not thousands, but millions of Dollars for their Pakistani brethren. Turkey became the largest donor for the Earthquake relief for Pakistan. Long Live Pakistan Turki dosti!
Filed under: Current Affairs, Pak CA Tagged: Istanbul, Turkey 
Lanka has never been part of “India”, though Delhi wants it to be included in “India”. The nation exists on its intellectual capital (almost total adult literacy), and by the hard work of its professional work force. It is an island paradise, and the Lankans have fought to keep it that way for centuries.
Bharat wants to take over all the countries that are her neighbors, Lanka is just one of them. Nepal and Sikkim– fellow Hindu countries also faces the same interference.
South Asia for millenia has never been a monolith country–it has been a conglomeration of hundreds of states. During the East India Company Raj (177601857) there were more than 570 states. The same number states existed during the British rule (1857-1947) with varying degrees of independence from the crown. From ancient times to the present day Bharat has tried to take over Lanka. From the stories of Ram, Sita and Hanuman, and from the holy scriptures the Dasyus and the darker ones had to be enslaved. Bharati imperialists like Pushyamitra, Mihirakula and others exterminated Buddhism from the land of its birth and then tried to incorporate Buddha into what is became known as “Hinduism” during John Princep’s British Raj. John Princep also conjured up a mythical figure called “Ashoka”–whose existence has not been recorded in any history book of his time (neither Greek not Asia). Did Ashoka exist? Did Pandit Radhakantta create him for James Princep in 1837. Ashoka was connjured up to show the vastness of the ephemeral “Ahand Bharat” that supposedly existed from Kabul to Raj Kalhani–a mythical place east of Bali! All this to allow create a ”Hindu” identity that could replace the centuries of Buddhist and a thousand year Muslim rule in South Asia.
The Brahmans did the same with Jainism–tried to incorporate it into Hinduism. Of course the Buddhists all over the world are not Hindu and no Buddhist accepts Buddha’s inclusion into the galaxy of 33 million Hindu Gods, along with Kali Devi, Brahma, Arjun, and Ganesh.The Manuwadi Hindus destroyed Buddhism in its own land of birth.
The sword of Brahamanism was not used exclusively for the Buddhists, Jains and darker skinned Untouchables (Dalits) suffered too. Today 450 million Dalits remain enslaved in India–who are fighting for the right to be accepted as human beings. Not satisfied by eliminating Buddhism on the continental Subcontinent today the same sword of Hinduvata Brahmanism continues to spread carnage to the Sinhalese Buddhists in Sri Lanka, the Sikkimese Buddhist, and the Bhutanese Buddhists. Brahman’s also chased the Buddhists in Southeast Asia. Kampuchia, Laos and Vietnam are full of carcasses the carnage that was exported to Southeast Asia. Millions of Buddhists ran from the Subcontinent to Burma, and even to China, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
Buddha was a unitarian and a monotheist. He neither propagated polytheism, nor had any soft corner for Hinduism. Why did Buddhism disappear from South Asia? Brahmin atrocities that destroyed Buddhism in the Subcontinent. The last refuge of Buddhism was in Lanka.
In modern times aggressively belligerent Bharati Hindu Tamils supported by the RAW and the Bharati (aka Indian) establishment supported an incessant and increasingly brutal guerilla war against the peaceful Sinhalese Buddhist of Lanka. LTTE perfected the art of suicide bombing and used it against the Buddhist Lankan Army and civilians. Bharat supported the LTTE terror group for a decade. LTTE was created by India
Disrupting LTTE supply lines from India: How Lanka won the war against Delhi sponsored terrorists. Pakistan and China assisted the Lankan forces in defeating the Indian terror organization the LTTE and RAW provided its leaders support and refuge. Pakistan China celebrate LTTE annhilation
The LTTE also chased the Lankan cricket players in Lahore and a plethora of Lankan leaders blame Delhi for the LTTE attack on Lankan cricket players in Lahore. Impact of Indian RAW strike against Sri Lankans–this time in Pakistan. Delhi payback for defeat of LTTE in Lanka
India admits to supporting LTTE terrorists in Sri Lanka! Pakistan to continue to help Lanka crush the Tamil Tigers. The Lankans finally defeated the LTTE, but the Bharatis wanted to take revenge on the president, and used the former head of the army to try to conduct a coup against the elected president. The Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse remains chagrined at the Bharati and Bharati RAW support for the Chief of Staff.
Nandana Goonathilake, the Sri Lankan minister of postal services, said the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s foreign intelligence service, had worked against Rajapakse at the January 26 vote even though the Indian government publicly supported him. “How the RAW operates and the way that the government of India operates are sometimes very different,” Goonathilake told the Daily Mirror newspaper in an interview. “This is why I said though the Indian government was for President Rajapakse, particular (RAW) officials worked against him,” he added, without elaborating.
Reconciliation: Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, meanwhile, urged Sri Lankan leaders to open a new era of stability after the island’s civil war by bringing minority Tamils into mainstream society, officials said on Monday.
Rao, on a visit to Colombo, told President Rajapakse that the defeat of Tamil Tiger separatist rebels last year could lead to a lasting solution to decades of ethnic conflict. Sri Lanka had “a historic opportunity to initiate a process of political reconciliation where all communities in Sri Lanka can live in peace and harmony”, Rao said in a statement. Rao also welcomed Sri Lanka’s moves to grant freedom of movement to tens of thousands of war-displaced Tamil civilians who were held in military-run camps. India, with its large Tamil population in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, shares close cultural and religious links with Sri Lanka. afp. Daily Times.‘RAW worked against Sri Lankan president’
President Mahinda Rajapakse at polls in January and wanted him defeated, a minister said in an interview published on Monday.LankanCOLOMBO: India’s external intelligence agency tried to undermine Sri Lanka.
Pakistan Sri Lanka growing military alliance. Bharat wanted Lanka to cancel the Chinese Humbolta port project and sever links with Pakistan.There are long term implications of the revelations by Nandana Goonathilake, the Sri Lankan minister of postal services. The revelations that Delhi has been interfering in Lankan politics cannot be good for Lankan-Bharati relations. Bharati Foreign Secretary has been unable to convince the Lankans in canceling the Chinese port project, and repeatedly apologies about RAW seem to be falling on deaf ears. India has to stop terror, face some hard realities in Sri Lanka. How many times can Lanka forget and forgive Delhi?
There is a reason, why all of Bharat’s neighbors hate Bharat (aka India)
Filed under: Current Affairs, India CA Tagged: Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, Sri Lanka 
Prime Minster Gilani, President Ahmadinejad, and President Karzai met in Tehran, alone, then in Turkey with all of Afghanistan’s neighbors (sans India) and finally in Lond with 61 other countries (where Delhi got what the Times of India called a second row seat). Pakistan’s Chief of Army staff visited Kabul last week. Mr. Karzai is visiting Islamabad this week. President Ahmadinejad is visiting Kabul and then Islamabad. A lot of traffic back and forth suggests a precursor to the American withdrawal out of Afghanistan.
Bharat is chagrined at being left out. The Bharati media is up in arms af the colossal failure of Delhi’s foreign policy. Shukla, and others have written long diatribes on how Bharat can engage with different segments of Afghan society so that it can keep a toe hold in Afghanistan. Bharat has rubbed Iran the wrong way by stabbing it at the IAEA and by launching Iran-specific satellites for Israel. Bharat is expected to playing a role in US-led sanctions against Iran. Delhi is also building the Salma Dam in Afghanistan which stops water from flowing into Iran. This is a huge bone of contention for Teheran. Pursuing a Pro-Tel Aviv policy with bring Delhi man blow-back and backlash from the region. Pakistan has traded in Jundallah for Iranian quid pro quo Iranian support in Afghanistan.
A Proxy war in Afghanistan is playing out in Afghanistan. Strategic depth vs Strategic clout is being fought in the Hindu Kush and the Pamirs. Why Iran won’t sell gas to India or allow it to explore its oilfields
New Delhi has been working assiduously to realize its strategic objectives in Afghanistan–namely the destabilization of Pakistan. According to Raghav Sharma of the ICPS in New Delhi “India’s primary interests in Afghanistan include the following: negating Taliban’s influence, securing a road and energy corridor to Central Asia and preventing the spread of drug and weapons proliferation.”
The latest developments in Tehran, and Istanbul, culminating in London seem to suggest that Delhi has failed in achieving those objectives. The London conference repudiated Delhi’s intransigence in rejecting overtures to the Taliban. Mr. Karzai was mandated in forming a government of national consensus. He is now traveling to Pakistan to ask for Islamabad’s help in brining peace to Afghanistan by working with the Taliban. Pakistani COAS General Kiyani had traveled to Kabul to propose training the Pakistani Army and Police. This is expected to be accepted by President Karzai who desperately needs Islamabad’s blessings. Resisting Indian hegemony by all neighbors:-Afghan cauldron
Ahmadinejad’s Kabul trip takes place at a time when trilateral Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan talks have produced a tangible dividend, mainly because Islamabad’s recent cooperation with Iran in the arrest of Abdulmalik Rigi, the notorious head of the Jundallah terrorist group, seems to show Pakistan has shifted strategy to make cooperation with Iran an arm of its anti-India policy in Afghanistan
…There is a consensus in Tehran that Rigi’s arrest would not have been possible without the cooperation of Pakistani intelligence, which has recently arrested a number of high-ranking Taliban leaders. Asia Times. Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD.Ahmadinejad hunkers down with Karzai
The US recently published a Afghanistan Stabilization strategy.
this Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy is just another “do as we say, not as we do” policy strategy in a long laundry list of duplicitous and insidious drivel that has been pervading and emanating from our nation’s capital for some time. Real success in Afghanistan doesn’t involve such complex nation-building, central planning, socialist, or imperialist pursuits. Just ask the Soviets, Brits, Mongols, Macedonians, and countless others that have preceded us in invading this region. The people of this region reject strong central governments as well as any heavy-handed involvement from external powers. They seek and love freedom as much as many Americans. And please spare the retort that this time is different simply because it is us, the United States, who happens to be bringing “freedom,” “justice,” “rule of law,” blah, blah, blah! Those aforementioned empires and their citizens suffered from the same misguided idealism. Josef Storm [send him mail] has been an aid worker in Afghanistan, and understands the futility of chasing ghosts.Lew Rockwell
The US Pakistani relationship has overcome the hindrances placed between them by Bharat and other countries. Post London Pakistan-American Strategic symbiosis leaves Delhi in the cold. There is a new dynamic developing in South Asia. The old “build-Bharat-up-as-a-counterweight-to China” has been dumped in favor of a building dialogue, discussion and cooperation with China. Gen. Petraeus accepts Pakistan’s strategic depth in Afghanistan. The biggest strategic Indo-US project is the 123 Nuclear deal. However the nuclear cooperation is in cold storage and President Obama has not operationalized it. This new Islamabad-Washington cooperation has manifested itself in Delhi being disinvited from the regional conference in Turkey, and Delhi being given what the Times of India calls a 2nd row seat in the London conference on Afghanistan. Shocked by the snub from the US, Russia, China, and the UK in London–Delhi was even more chagrined when the US announced the “gift” of half a dozen frigates, choppers, laser bombs and other arms to Pakistan. India jittery about US arms for Pakistan. To put salt on the wounds, the US has announced a larger aid package to Pakistan in 2010. This on top of the EU proposal to pay Pakistan war reparations to the tune of $45 billion. War Reparations: Pakistan asks for $45 billion from EU
The US is being coaxed to expedite the ROZ, a FTA, and free access to US markets. Washington is also assisting Pakistan in electrical and energy projects.
These events and the huge failure of Delhi’s foreign policy in Afghanistan brought Delhi back to the peace talks. However the peace talks are just a ruse to let the world know that Bharat wants to talk. The so called peace talks are “talks for the sake of talks”–a way to delay and dilly dally. Delhi thinks that by procrastinating the problems will go away. Neither Kashmir, nor Hyderabad, nor Junagarh, and Manvadar have gone away. They fester as a wound. Desperate for an angle into Afghanistan, Mr. Manmohan Singh went to Riyadh–and came back empty handed. What did India get in Riyadh? It is obvious that Delhi’s Mumbai card has run out of steam. After the fiasco of Mumbai– Mumbai 2 (Pune) was not even tried.
This is what Kanwal Sibal says in the Hindustan Times.
Western overtures to the Taliban constitute a significant diplomatic success for Pakistan. Its grit in resisting US pressure to act against the Afghan Taliban has been rewarded. With US Central Command Chief, General David Petraeus, now averse to Pakistan stirring up any more ‘hornets nests’ in the border areas, a self-confident Pakistani Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is offering to mediate between the US-Nato and the Taliban. His only condition being that Pakistan’s need for a soft strategic depth in Afghanistan is recognised as an insurance against the Indian threat and limits are put on India’s presence in Afghanistan. Kayani’s stature in Pakistan has risen and Pakistan’s attitude towards India has hardened, as was evident during the recent foreign secretary-level talks in New Delhi last week.
India would need to rethink its options in Afghanistan. We cannot count on President Karzai as before. Our local popularity is a fragile base for retaining our long-term influence, unless we can affect power equations within the country. Anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan need stronger backing by Russia, the Central Asian countries, Iran and India. The US is disregarding India’s long-term strategic interests in the region; it is yielding to Pakistan’s disruptive ambitions in Afghanistan.
Muhammad Saleh Zaafir has written a prodigious article in the News and Kanwal Sibal has mirrored those same thoughts from an Indian perspective. Both articles portray a sense of dismay and disappointment in Delhi–and a sense of appointment and energy in Islamabad.
The Pakistani military wants to ensure that it gets a central role in the end game in Afghanistan, in particular in any negotiations with the Taliban. The Americans seem to have agreed to this–provided Pakistan produce the desired Taliban heads. General Kiyani’s visit to Kabul and Mr. Karzai’s return visit will ensure that there are no glitches in this.
Filed under: Current Affairs, India CA, Pak CA, US CA, US Int Rel., US Poli 
