Day: July 7, 2022

Pakistan has called for an urgent “plan of action” to grapple with poverty and hunger that have been made more acute by the current geo-political tensions, especially for the peoples facing war and occupation for decades.

Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Munir Akram at an event held at UN Headquarters in New York said the international community must maintain access to food and end supply restrictions, export bans, hoarding, speculation and panic buying of food and fertilizers.

He said supply chains should be kept fully operational, including for processing food and related logistics.

Ambassador Munir Akram also called for moderating food prices, especially for inflation-hit developing countries, through appropriate international, national and market mechanisms.

Source: Radio Pakistan

Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman says technical and financial assistance is the need of the hour for energy transition in climate vulnerable countries.

She was talking to United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry on telephone.

They discussed a need for just energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and committed to a renewed working partnership between PAK-US.

Furthermore, they talked about Pakistan’s commitment to a Global Methane Pledge, and suggested cooperation on the path forward.

The Minister underscored that Pakistan is consistently placed in the top ten most vulnerable countries in the world impacted by climate change which has now become an existential threat to the country.

She apprised Senator Kerry about Pakistan’s accelerated vulnerability to the climate crisis, saying that despite producing less than one percent of Green House Gases emissions Pakistan is now the ground zero of a global climate catastrophe.

Sherry Rehman also appreciated the Biden administration’s commitments to global climate goals and thanked Senator Kerry for his strong personal leadership of these most defining challenges for the 21st century.

Source: Radio Pakistan

Pakistan has called upon the international community, particularly the United Nations and human rights organizations, to investigate the persistent extra-judicial killings of Kashmiris by Indian Occupation Forces and bring the perpetrators of these heinous crimes to justice.

In his weekly press briefing, Foreign Office spokesperson Asim Iftikhar said Pakistan will continue to support the Kashmiri people in their just struggle against Indian occupation till the realization of their inalienable right to self-determination as promised by the relevant UN Security Council’s Resolutions.

To a question on blocking the official twitter accounts of several Pakistani missions, the spokesperson said it is a matter of grave concern that India has slid into an oppressive, intolerant, totalitarian state where room for plurality of people’s beliefs, opinions and voices is shrinking at an alarming rate.

He said there is news in international media that Twitter has filed a legal petition against Indian government orders to take down specific content and withhold accounts on no clear pretext other than political whims.

He urged media and international organizations that are guardians of free speech and expression to hold Indian digital dictatorship to account and prevail upon the Government of India to reverse its actions.

Source: Voice of America

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif says government is committed to the solarisation of Pakistan.

He was talking to a delegation of China Three Gorges International Corporation (CTGI), Kohala Hydropower Project and Karot Hydropower Project led by Charg d’Affaires of the Chinese Embassy Ms Pang Chunxue, who called on him in Islamabad.

The Prime Minister thanked China Three Gorges International Corporation for the timely completion of the Karot Hydropower Project and the free supply of electricity to Pakistan before the commencement of its commercial operation.

The Prime Minister expressed keen interest in working together on hydel, solar and wind power generation.

He vowed to make full use of the resources available to generate solar energy in the country to save the valuable foreign exchange reserves spent on importing oil and gas to generate expensive electricity from thermal sources.

Later, CTGI requested the Prime Minister to extend the period of Letter of Support to get the required investment from Sinosure China for the completion of Kohala Hydropower Project.

The Prime Minister directed the concerned authorities to issue a new LOS by 20th of this month, and directed them to remove all obstacles to the completion of the Kohala Hydropower Project.

Source: Radio Pakistan

Taliban security forces in eastern Afghanistan have extrajudicially killed dozens of suspected members and supporters of a local affiliate of the Islamic State terrorist group, according to Human Rights Watch.

The global human rights group has documented the alleged abuses in a report released Thursday, saying they were committed in eastern Nangarhar and Kunar provinces.

“Since the Taliban took power in August 2021, residents of Nangahar and Kunar … have discovered the bodies of more than 100 men dumped in canals and other locations [between August 2021 and April 2022],” the report said.

The two provinces, which border Pakistan, are known for hosting active bases of the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), the Afghan affiliate of Islamic State.

Taliban forces in these areas had “carried out abusive search operations” against residents they accused of sheltering or supporting ISIS-K members, according to the report.

During these security actions, including night raids, residents allegedly had been subjected to torture and men detained without legal process or revealing their whereabouts to their families.

“Taliban authorities appear to have given their forces free rein to detain, ‘disappear,’ and kill alleged militants,” said Patricia Gossman, the associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

The bodies showed evidence of torture and brutal executions: some had missing limbs, ropes around their necks, or had been beheaded or had slit throats, according to the report.

Chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid rejected the report as baseless, saying local authorities had investigated these “rumors” but found not a single body in Nangarhar or other areas.

“The propaganda being spread by some well-known international organizations in this regard is disturbing and unfortunate,” Mujahid wrote on Twitter.

Human Rights Watch said while working with a local partner, it interviewed — mostly in person — 63 people between October 2021 and June 2022 for the report. The watchdog claimed to have found “substantial evidence of summary executions and “enforced disappearances” by Taliban forces of suspected ISIS-K supporters.

In November, a United Nations Security Council meeting on Afghanistan was also informed the Taliban’s campaign against ISIS-K “appears to rely heavily on extra-judicial detentions and killings.”

Afghanistan has experienced a spike in ISIS-K-plotted bombings since the Taliban takeover, particularly targeting Hazara, Shiite and other minority communities in the country. The violence has killed hundreds of people, including security forces.

Taliban authorities have regularly conducted retaliatory raids against ISIS-K hideouts in Kabul and elsewhere in the country. The latest such operation was carried out Wednesday night in the Afghan capital, where Mujahid claimed it killed two ISIS-K militants and arrested several others.

“The ISKP’s numerous atrocities do not justify the Taliban’s horrific response,” HRW’s Gossman said, using a local acronym for the terrorist group. “Taliban forces have repeatedly carried out summary executions and other war crimes against people in their custody and have yet to hold those responsible to account.”

Source: Radio Pakistan

India has reestablished a diplomatic presence in Afghanistan by sending a technical team to reopen its Kabul embassy, ostensibly for humanitarian purposes, but analysts see it as an effort to secure New Delhi’s strategic interests in the conflict-ridden country, where the Taliban’s return has put Pakistan in a dominant position.

India closed its embassy after the Taliban takeover last August in what was seen as a major strategic setback for New Delhi.

The Ministry of External Affairs said the team is to coordinate the delivery of humanitarian assistance but analysts cite other reasons for the move.

“Reopening the Indian Embassy is really about keeping our eyes and ears on the ground and exploring the possibility of a working relationship with the Taliban, which includes security assurances that Afghan territory would not be used, particularly by Pakistan against India,” Gautam Mukhopadhaya, a former Indian ambassador to Afghanistan, said.

“It’s an opening gambit so to speak, in some ways you are back in the game,” he said.

India has been concerned that Afghanistan will become a haven for militants from Pakistan who have been at the forefront of a three-decade violent separatist insurgency in Indian Kashmir.

India and the Taliban have long been fiercely opposed to each other, but both sides have shifted their stance slightly. Analysts say that while New Delhi has accepted that the hardline Islamist group is there to stay for the foreseeable future, Afghanistan’s new leadership has also reached out to India.

“The Taliban has sent signals that it would like India to be present because they are trying to engage with the rest of the world and India is an important country in the region. From the Indian point of view, if the possibility emerged of keeping a presence in Afghanistan, then why not?” said Sushant Sareen, a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.

“However, this is in no way an endorsement of the Taliban regime. India has only gone back in a small way,” he added.

India has consistently called for an inclusive administration in Afghanistan and expressed concern at the erosion of women’s and girls’ rights under Taliban rule.

The first signal of rapprochement between the two sides came when India began sending food and medicine to the country earlier this year. So far it has sent 20,000 tons of wheat. It also sent aid in the aftermath of the deadly earthquake that wracked Afghanistan last month, along with the technical team posted to Kabul.

After India reopened its embassy, Afghanistan called on other countries to do the same thing.

“The arrival of Indian diplomats in Afghanistan and reopening of [Indian] embassy demonstrates that security is established in the country and all political and diplomatic rights are respected,” Abdul Qahar Balkhi, Taliban spokesperson said.

The next step could be to facilitate student and medical visas for Afghans wanting to come to India. Hundreds of students, including many who were given scholarships by the Indian government, were enrolled in Indian universities before the Taliban takeover but many had returned to Afghanistan during the COVID-19 pandemic, as colleges switched to online learning. India was also a popular destination for Afghans seeking medical treatment.

After a meeting between Taliban foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, and Afghan students this week, the Taliban said that Kabul will approach New Delhi to grant visas to students who have not been able to return to India after COVID restrictions were lifted.

“The premise on which India has gone back to Afghanistan is for the welfare of the people. If that is so, then giving student and medical visas are likely to be on the table although it may not happen in the near future,” Sareen said.

“India will first wait and watch whether the Taliban is willing to do business with us,” he said.

The Taliban outreach to India is also seen as helping the group as Afghanistan faces huge challenges.

“The Taliban better positions itself to make pitches for badly needed financial assistance from a major source of aid – even though New Delhi likely won’t make commitments to anything beyond humanitarian aid,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based Wilson Center. “And it can help the Taliban earn some backing from a public that has resented the Taliban’s historic deep ties to Pakistan,” he said.

However, India’s engagement with the Taliban is likely to be a slow, cautious process as it assesses the group’s attitude toward New Delhi.

“It is unlikely India will upgrade the embassy anytime soon or maybe at all, depending on the direction that the Taliban takes. You are treading water but with your foot in,” Mukhopadhaya said.

From the standpoint of India’s Western allies, such as the United States, New Delhi’s return to Afghanistan is a welcome development according to analysts.

“It’s important for Washington that it’s not just rivals like Pakistan, China, Russia, and Iran that are engaging with the Taliban,” according to Kugelman. “The US will also likely view India as an important player in its efforts to get the Taliban to improve its rights record.”

The embassy reopening could also be a step toward New Delhi, which some had thought sidelined in the region in August, regaining some of the leverage that it has lost in the country, where for two decades following the 2001 U.S. invasion it had built soft power with a slew of development projects such as roads, schools and hospitals.

“In Afghanistan, there is never any endgame,” Sareen said, “Every endgame is the beginning of a new Great Game.”

Source: Voice of America