IN a highly significant move, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan have affirmed that their co-operation is vital to peace and stability, not only in Afghanistan but also in the region. They also made it clear that any regional arrangement for resolving the Afghan conflict should co-opt only immediate neighbours of the war-ravaged country, thus clearly and unambiguously excluding India. A declaration was issued after the meeting between the foreign ministers of the three countries in Islamabad on Saturday. Coming as it does before the London international moot on Afghanistan, which is being held at the end on this month, the meeting conveys an important message to the participants who are supposed to evolve, among other things, an international architecture for co-ordinating global efforts for peace, stability and development in Afghanistan. India is keen to fill the vacuum in Afghanistan after the US-led allied forces leave the country, even though it does not share a border with Afghanistan. There are a number of countries, including the United Kingdom, that are eager to include India and some other countries in a security umbrella for Afghanistan. India’s inclusion in any arrangement of the type should be particularly disturbing for Islamabad on account of New Delhi’s continuing hostility, indicated among other things by the recent jingoistic statement by Indian army chief General Deepak Kapoor.
India has over the last few years enhanced its presence in Afghanistan. It has tried to lure the Karzai regime by offering it financial assistance. A number of Indian firms are presently engaged in development work in the country and have also brought with them hundreds of Indians as technicians and workers. There is a widely-held perception that Indian intelligence sleuths might have entered the neighbouring country in a large number in the garb of employees of these private firms. What is particularly worrisome for Pakistan is that New Delhi has opened a number of consulates in towns bordering Pakistan. Pakistan strongly believes these are involved in sending saboteurs and terrorists into Balochistan. While Afghanistan is the principal victim of terrorism, Pakistan and Iran are directly affected by what happens in that country. It was, therefore, important to indicate to the world that they enjoy a special position and that no resolution of the conflict planned abroad, which neglects their concerns, can succeed. The reminder has come at a time when besides the London moot on Afghanistan, regional meetings are to be held, in days to come in Istanbul and Moscow, to discuss the situation in Afghanistan. The Islamabad Declaration rightly stresses that regional or international conferences have to acknowledge the salience of the trilateral engagement and co-operation for achieving common objectives and lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan. The declaration underlines the need for these process to be ‘indigenous’ and have the “ownership of all the immediate neighbours of Afghanistan.” The three foreign ministers agreed on expanding their trilateral co-operation to include Afghanistan’s other immediate neighbours - Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and China. The follow-up of the trilateral meeting can be of great help in bringing the three countries together. A number of meetings between the three neighbours have been announced. Ministers of Interior will meet in Islamabad, Ministers of Finance and Commerce in Kabul and intelligence chiefs in Tehran.
Pakistan, in Islamabad, will host the next trilateral conference. An important decision taken at the meeting was that none of the three countries would allow its soil to be used against the other. This would hopefully bring to an end complaints by all the three regarding interference and acts of militancy from across each other’s borders. It would allay Iran’s concerns regarding Jundullah criss-crossing Pak-Iran border with impunity. If pursued in letter and spirit, it would effectively address Pakistan’s complaints regarding terrorists using Afghanistan as a launching pad and the leadership of Balochistan’s militant networks, responsible for the acts of sabotage and target killing in the province, enjoying asylum in Afghanistan. According to Shah Mahmud Qureshi, the three countries also discussed the connectivity and the roadmap for the region to face the challenge of militant extremism. Also came under discussion, the ways and means to curb illicit weapons and drug money through a comprehensive approach. It would benefit the three neighbouring countries to stick to a common roadmap for trilateral interaction in days to come.
Mideast will define Obama’s legacy
BARACK Obama completes his first year in the White House today, and it’s hard to resist the temptation of rushing in with the verdict on his performance. However, given the extraordinary challenges this US president has faced even before he walked into the White House, it is more complicated than summing it up as success ?or failure. One year is perhaps too short a period to judge a president who has inherited a mindboggling mess at home and abroad. But judged Obama will be, especially in the Middle East where his unusual background and his powerful message of change have kindled unprecedented hopes and expectations. And the hopes and expectations about finally bringing peace to the Middle East haven’t just swept the region but captured the imagination of the world at large. Those soaring expectations had been hardly unjustified, considering Obama launched his Middle East peace initiative in his first week in office swiftly dispatching George Mitchell to the region. His first executive decision ordering the closure of the Guantanamo Bay within a year set the tone for Obama’s engagement with the Muslim world. His inaugural speech talked of exploring a “new way forward” with the world’s Muslims, as he tried to undo the bitterness and confrontation of the George W Bush years. In his address to Turkey’s parliament and later university students in Cairo, he reached out to the Muslim world like no Western or US leader had ever done—or perhaps ever will. Without apologising for pro-Israel US policies, Obama talked of justice, freedom and equal rights for the Palestinian people. He talked of his own Muslim inheritance and family to bridge the chasm of the West and Islamic world.
The Middle East, and the larger Islamic world, hasn’t still forgotten that historic, powerful speech in Cairo nor has it given up on Obama’s promise of change and the ‘audacity of hope’. However, it’s getting impatient for the change this amazing, young president promised. A year is perhaps too short a time to judge anyone, let alone judge a US president over a complex issue such as the Middle East. But there’s a growing feeling in the region that Obama’s initial enthusiasm for finding a solution for the Palestinian-Israel tangle has given way to helpless indifference, or even apathy. No one ever suggested resolving the Middle East was a child’s play. It wouldn’t be festering all these years — for nearly a century — if this issue were that simple. But this is precisely why the US has to do more and flex its muscles, as it has been doing elsewhere all these years to protect its interests, to push the Israelis to deliver on their commitments and obligations. Israel has to be singled out because the Palestinians, for their part, have been waiting, endlessly waiting all these years for peace, justice and a piece of whatever remains of this moth-eaten land. The US ally and biggest recipient of US aid has been openly defying and mocking Obama by expanding Jewish settlements on what little remains of the Palestinian land.
—Khaleej Times
Source:dailymailnews.com/
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