ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday dismissed reports about Russia’s involvement in Balochistan as misleading saying the country attaches great importance to its ties with the Federation. A clarification from the Foreign Office said that during a briefing to the Senate by Advisor to Prime Minister on Interior “reference to the Soviet Union was made in a historical context.”“The media coverage on the subject was misleading,” a statement quoting the Foreign Office spokesman said and added that it has also been conveyed to the Russian Federation through diplomatic channels.

The Foreign Office Spokesman said Pakistan attaches great importance to its relations with the Russian Federation which was playing an important role for peace, security and stability at the international and regional planes.

The Spokesman said Pakistan and Russia were in the process of strengthening their multifaceted cooperation and in this context referred to Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s recent visit to Moscow to participate in a Special Conference under the SCO. The two countries are engaged building a comprehensive partnership. These relations will continue to grow in the times to come, the spokesman said.-APP

MOSCOW: Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that Russia was considering to offer military aircraft to help supply NATO soldiers in Afghanistan, in an overture to a new US administration. The Kremlin has said that it was looking for a fresh start in relations under new US President Barack Hussain Obama and would be seeking concessions from him over missile defence plans which the Kremlin thought a threat to its security.

When asked about ways to improve ties with the United States, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia was ready for close cooperation on Afghanistan. The United States wanted Russia to provide it with transit routes to re-supply NATO-led forces fighting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, particularly after militants attacked truck convoys on a supply route through Pakistan.

”Non-military transit has already been granted as part of our agreements with NATO and the United States very recently received our agreement for delivery of their cargoes for the needs of the international forces and additional steps are also possible,”

Lavrov said.

US Vice President Joe Biden, in a speech at a security conference in Munich this month, said it was time ”to press the reset button” on relations with Moscow. His comments were welcomed by Russian officials. ”Vice President Biden spoke about this in Munich as a process which would help normalize our relations and take them to the level of a constructive partnership,” Lavrov said.

”There are many problems in the world which we need to resolve together, there are too many threats that are common for both Russia and the United States and Europe and other states.” The Kremlin has identified Afghanistan as an area where it has common interests with Washington. Russians still have fresh memories of the failed Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and see the Taliban as a threat to their security.-SANA

MOSCOW: The Leading Russian Company TVEL to ink $780 Million nuclear fuel contract with India next week for the supply of fuel for atomic power plants. According to Indian media, under the deal likely to be inked in Mumbai on Wednesday, TVEL, one the world’s largest nuclear fuel producers, will supply 2,000 metric tones of uranium pellets to the Indian nuclear power plants.

“The contract, if signed, could make Russia the first country to supply nuclear fuel to India since the Nuclear Suppliers Group lifted a three-decade ban on nuclear fuel sales to the country on September 6, 2008,” a spokesman for Russia’s state atomic power corporation Rosatom was quoted as saying.

Russia is building two 1000 VVER light water reactors in Tamil Nadu and during President Dmitry Medvedev’s New Delhi visit in December last year, the two countries agreed to build four more units.-SANA

MOSCOW: Just two weeks into President Obama’s administration, Russia is moving to reassert its influence over former Soviet republics in Central Asia. Moscow is pushing military cooperation and offering financial aid in what some say is reminiscent of the Kremlin’s client-state relationships during the Cold War.

The U.S. is in talks with the government of Kyrgyzstan over the use of a military air base in the Central Asian nation, White House and Pentagon officials say. Kyrgyzstan said Tuesday it was evicting the U.S. from the Manas air base, which is critical to U.S. military operations in neighboring Afghanistan. Many analysts see the hand of Russia behind Kyrgyzstan’s decision.

The U.S. military began running operations out of the Manas air base shortly after invading Afghanistan in late 2001. The site has evolved into a key staging point for U.S. and NATO troops and some supplies heading into Afghanistan. It is also where the U.S. bases its air-to-air refueling tankers used in the region.

Manas became the last remaining U.S. air base in central Asia when Uzbekistan evicted the American military from its soil in 2005. Using that as leverage, Kyrgyzstan has, in the past, threatened to close down Manas, says George Friedman, the CEO of the global intelligence company Stratfor and the author of The Next 100 Years. “It’s happened a number of times in the past where the issue is simply money,” Friedman says. “The question we don’t know the answer to is whether or not that’s the primary issue right now.”

Friedman says the timing of Kyrgyzstan’s announcement is important: It came just hours after Russia offered the former Soviet republic $2 billion in aid. He says this puts the U.S. in an interesting position. “The Russians have offered them money to close it; we’re offering them money to keep it open,” he says.

Friedman says the Russians have levers aside from money, including influence inside Kyrgyzstan and many old connections. “So unlike previous times when the essential issue was the Kyrgyzstan government trying to shake down the United States for more cash,” Friedman says, “this time it’s more of a bidding war.”

Many analysts say they believe Kyrgyzstan could carry through with its threat this time. Already, the government sent a decree to parliament on closing the U.S. air base. Alexander Cooley, an associate professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University, says one factor in Kyrgyzstan’s action most likely has to do with President Obama’s decision to make Afghanistan a priority.

Cooley says both Kyrgyzstan and Russia want to test the importance of that — for different reasons. “The Kyrgyz see the importance of Afghanistan as only elevating the importance of their asset, which is in essence hosting the U.S. base,” says Cooley, who wrote Base Politics, which examines U.S. bases overseas, including the one at Manas. “Russia sees this as an opportunity to send a shot across the bow: ‘We can influence the region; we can make life unpleasant for you,’” he says.-SANA

In a sad incident assailants have destroyed ten containers in Tehsil Landi Kotal area of Khyber Agency on Wednesday. The containers were full of supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan. No causality was reported in the incident. Militants also attacked in Landi Kotal cantonment area last night in which an official of Frontier Constabulary (FC) sustained injuries. This is not first and singular example of attacks on NATO convoys delivering goods to troops.

Previously NATO’s vital supply link through the Northwest Frontier Province has been shut down as the Pakistani military launched an operation to clear the Taliban from the area. The move comes as Taliban attacks have increasingly targeted NATO columns and shipping terminals in Khyber and Peshawar. More than 300 NATO vehicles and containers have been destroyed in a series of attacks on shipping terminals in Peshawar as well as attacks on convoys moving through the region.

The NATO logistical chain through Pakistan stretches from the port city of Karachi to Peshawar, through the Khyber Pass to Kabul. More than 70 percent of NATO supplies move through Peshawar.

Options of Alternative routs:
It has been enormously difficult task of supplying troops in landlocked, mountainous and with few good roads, Afghanistan. For Washington Post it is Achilles’ heel of foreign armies here, most recently the Soviets. U.S. officials are seeking alternatives routes, including the prospect of beginning deliveries by a tortuous overland journey from Europe, Iran or Russia.

Kyrgyzstan has Closed a route
However recently Kyrgyz government is planning to close a strategically important U.S. military base that Washington uses as a route for troops and supplies heading into Afghanistan on its territory after Russia offered $2bn of emergency aid to the impoverished central Asian country, Russian media reported Tuesday. The base, located at Manas outside Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital, was established with Russia’s support in 2001 to support US coalition forces’ campaign to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan. Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said at a news conference in Moscow that “all due procedures” were being initiated to close Manas Air Base, the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti reported.

U.S. President Barack Obama has made it clear that fight against militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan is more important than in Iraq. War on terror has become his top priority. His administration is expected to send as many as 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in the coming months as Commanders in the field, led by U.S. Gen. David McKiernan has demanded more troops. Obama’s administration is also hoping that other NATO members, which were repeatedly pressed by the Bush administration for more support, will provide more troops – for both combat and accelerated training of Afghan forces. More troops more worrisome for U.S. when movement of Sensitive military goods, such as weapons and ammunition is considered; Torkhum is shortest and easiest route.

Iran as an Option
According to other news NATO would not oppose individual member nations who are interested in making deals with Iran to supply their forces in Afghanistan as an alternative to using increasingly risky routes from Pakistan, the alliance’s top military commander Gen. John Craddock’s commented.

“NATO is looking at flexible, alternate routing. I think that is healthy, Options are a good thing, choices are a good thing, flexibility in military operations is essential, what nations will do is upto them”

Craddock said, when he was inquired about the possibility of the nations with good relations with Iran such as France, Germany and Italy may try to set up an alternate supply route to western Afghanistan via Char Bahar, a port in southeastern Iran.

Iran has a long history of opposing Taliban rule; however for U.S. its role in Afghan war is deemed suspicious. U.S. analytics have been criticizing Iran for supporting militants in Afghanistan such criticism has been muted recently as President Barack Obama’s administration tries to set a new tone in relations with Iran. Bush administration has been claiming that elements in Iran was involved in supplying advanced roadside bombs, other munitions and training to insurgents in Iraq. Even Bush Administration declared Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps or its Qods Force a terrorist organization in Iran. Furthermore Iran has similar elements that can create enormous trouble for the supply chains via Iran.

Air Transport System
Air transport systems are considered best to elude supply route problems because air transportation is certainly difficult to attack; however non-combat goods is prohibitively expensive and also logistically difficult.

Why alternative route is required:
In past one year Pakistan has become increasingly dangerous as militants attack convoys that supply the foreign troops in Afghanistan, recent attack is a clear example. Several times these routs have been closed or operations and militants have been reportedly been killed but seepage remain continued from Pak-Afghan Boarders so it becomes difficult for U.S. to provide troops with necessary things from bullets and bombs to fuel to lettuce.

War on terror is on its end:
Since all the options are diminishing for U.S. for delivering goods to troops in Afghanistan. Kyrgyzstan would shut its military base that was established with Russian support; even if they do not that route is difficult and expensive. Since Russia and U.S. have not been in very friendly relationships. Ideological dichotomous history along with an era of cold war spreading over years; compel world to assume that Russia would not easily keep its support on for U.S.

U.S. new administration though changing its tone towards Iran but still extremist elements exist in Iran who certainly can be troublesome for transporting convoys. There are other antagonistic factors that has agonized segments in Iran; such as rising demands of closing its uranium enrichment activities; a strong attempt to stop Iran from seeking atomic power for peaceful purposes. It is deemed U.S. would seldom consider going to Afghanistan from Iran.

The war in Afghanistan has its ramifications in Pakistan too. Pakistan is a strongest alley in war on Terror with U.S but it is expected from a democratic government not to support U.S. in its war in manner that harms its national Interest. Drone attacks in tribal areas of Pakistan are aggravating situation and the influence of local Taliban is increasing among tribesmen. However it becomes difficult to measure who is behind these attacks however these can not be localities who would ultimately harm civil population of Pakistan. Taliban have a very clear mandate behind these attacks to pressurize government of Pakistan to stop its assistance to U.S. After attacking the major bridge; an eminent supply line to NATO forces has been disrupted and reconstruction of this line calls for ten days work. This has certainly effected the supply to allied forces. Thus Increased number of attacks on convoys have left U.S. with no options other than to discontinue its war on terror in Afghanistan.

can be effected.

MOSCOW: The Kyrgyz government is planning to close a strategically important U.S. military base that Washington uses as a route for troops and supplies heading into Afghanistan, Russian media reported Tuesday. Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said at a news conference in Moscow that “all due procedures” were being initiated to close Manas Air Base, the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti reported.

The announcement was made after news reports of a multimillion-dollar aid package from Russia to Kyrgyzstan. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell on Tuesday called Manas “a hugely important air base.”

“It provides us with launching point to provide supplies in Afghanistan. We very much appreciate [Kyrgyz] support in using that base and we hope to continue,” he said at his daily news briefing.

Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees U.S. operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, was in Kyrgyzstan last month, partly to lobby the government to allow the United States to keep using the base. He said he and Kyrgyz leaders did not discuss “at all” the possible closure of the base and said local officials told him there was “no foundation” for news reports about the issue.

The mountainous former Soviet republic is Central Asia’s second poorest country. The United States pays about $63 million a year for use of the base and employs more than 320 Kyrgyz citizens there, Petraeus said. The base has been in operation since December 2001 under U.N. mandate

The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported Tuesday that Russia would offer Kyrgyzstan a $300 million, 40-year loan at an annual interest rate of 0.75 percent, and write off $180 million of Kyrgyz debt. Kyrgystan is also home to a Russian military base, at Kant, that officially opened in 2003.

The United States is planning to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan to halt a resurgence of the Taliban. Petraeus described Manas as having “an important role in the deployment of these forces” and in refueling aircraft.

The relationship between the United States and Kyrgyzstan was damaged when a Kyrgyz citizen was killed by a U.S. airman in December 2006. The airman was transferred out of Kyrgyzstan and the dead man’s family was offered compensation. Petraeus said in January the investigation was being reopened. Bakiyev said in announcing the base closure Tuesday he was not satisfied with the inquiry into the accident and that his government’s “inability to provide security to its citizens” was proving a serious concern.-SANA

LONDON: One of the most explosive spots on earth today is the so-called Durand Line, the 2,640 kilometre border, much of it in harsh mountain country, between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is where the United States and its NATO allies are battling the Taliban — and are facing the possibility of military defeat.

Of all the challenges which will face the new American administration next January the ongoing war across the Afghan-Pakistan border could be the most difficult and dangerous. It is likely to overshadow the contest with Russia in the Caucasus, the rise of Iran as a major regional power, the search for an honourable exit strategy from Iraq, the impact of the collapsing Arab-Israeli peace process, and even the horrors of global warming, Arab daily AL-Hayat said.

The Durand Line was a British creation. It was demarcated and then signed into a treaty on 12 November 1893 between the ruler of Afghanistan, Amir Abdul Rahman Khan, and Sir Mortimer Durand, foreign secretary of what was then British India.

The tribal areas on both sides of the Durand Line have always been autonomous. Anxious to safeguard this autonomy, the tribes resist control by the central government, whether in Islamabad or Kabul. For centuries, their overriding impulse has been to protect their Muslim religion and their traditional way of life from foreign interference.

They do not want a Western model of society forced upon them. The morality they live by is that of the Pashtunwali Code, which means giving asylum and hospitality to visitors (which today may include members of Al-Qaeda as well as a wide variety of common criminals) and avenging any slight or attack.

A major mistake was the diversion of U.S. military effort from Afghanistan to Iraq in 2003 – a policy largely driven by neo-cons in Bush’s Administration, primarily concerned to destroy Iraq in order to enhance Israel’s security environment. But the switch of focus proved immensely costly in men and treasure. U.S. armed forces are overstretched; deficits have ballooned; the shattering of Iraq has handed Iran a strategic victory; and the Taliban have been able to regroup their forces on both sides of the Durand Line and are now a formidable force.

The U.S.-backed Karzai government in Kabul has a tenuous hold on power. The insurgency has spread to many parts of the country, indeed to Kabul itself. The military situation for the U.S. and NATO is worse today than it has been since 2001. At the same time, neighbouring Pakistan has been destabilized. President Asif Ali Zardari, like his predecessor President Pervez Musharraf, has to face a public which has become fervently pro-Taliban, and as fervently anti-American.

A fundamental rethinking of Western strategy is therefore urgently required. This could include:

* The declaration of a unilateral ceasefire.
* Political negotiations with the Taliban and the Pashtun tribes in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the aim of separating them from al-Qaeda. This would most probably involve guaranteeing the autonomy of the tribal areas, substantial financial subsidies, and offering the Taliban a share in government.
* Winning support from the main regional powers for a peace settlement across the Durand Line – Pakistan and Afghanistan, of course, but also India, Iran and even China.

The Indian-Pakistani conflict over Kashmir and their competition in Afghanistan has contributed to stoking the fires of revolt across the Durand Line. Finding a solution to the Kashmir problem should be a priority for the international community. It would rob Pakistan of a motive for promoting jihadi militancy.

Afghanistan would also greatly benefit since Pakistan has covertly backed jihadis in that country, if only to counter the growing, American-encouraged influence of India. Pakistan’s perennial fear is of being squeezed between India on one flank and an Indian-dominated Afghanistan on the other. The resolution of conflicts, rather than the use of military force – whether in south and central Asia or in the Middle East — is the only way to lessen, and ultimately defeat, the threat from terrorism. But it is not a lesson the United States has yet learned.-SANA

After Georgian venture men at Kremlin have started having second thoughts. They are now not following dollar-dominated world economy rather pursuing Euro-oriented territories with a multi-pronged policy. Many do not believe but some do. The Russians have not forgotten their 10 years in Afghanistan and how their armies were bleeding in the mountains of Afghanistan and how their economy collapsed. Coupled with its own dismemberment with Moscow no more holding its grip over world’s largest oil and gas reservoirs.

So if the Soviets bled in Afghanistan for 10 years from 1979 to 1989 it feels relaxed to hear that Americans are bleeding in rugged mountains of Urzgan, Kandhar, Khost, Zabul and other regions of Afghanistan. The landlocked geo-political situation of Afghanistan does attract interventions by state and non-state characters. From South it is seeking Iranian interference in Hirat, from West Talibans and those multinational international intelligence operatives wearing jackets of Talibans are bleeding USA’s Armed forces by many cuts.

Reports from Pakistan’s forward intelligence outfits clearly suggest easy availability of huge quantities of light grade weaponry and currencies ranging from dollar to Iranian Tuman, Indian rupee and paper currencies being practiced in Central Asian republics.

Perhaps Commander CENTCOM Admiral Mike Mullen gathers reports of multinational intelligence operatives active in Afghanistan in the guise of Taliban or Al-Qaeda. There are multidimensional economies at work in a land redded by thousands of people ever since Soviet Strong man Brezhnev was trapped by CIA to invade Afghanistan on December 31, 1979.

During the second Afghan war it was the United States alone which invaded Afghanistan. It had United Nations sanctions and support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. So in the beginning the world community listened carefully what the policy managers at State Department and pentagon were saying. Later years exposed many new stories of wheels within the wheels. Exposed economies being developed through the sales of weapons and drugs. The Drug mafias in Afghanistan, having support of local warlords, are playing double at times.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was not put off by the belligerent rhetoric used by officials of the former Soviet republic of Georgia who openly threatened to solve the country’s territorial disputes by force. NATO countries and their allies in recent months have spared no effort or money to equip, support and train the Georgian army. We all know what happened next.

In violation of all international agreements, on Aug. 7 the Georgian army invaded the responsibility zone of peacekeeping forces stationed to buffer between Georgia and its Russian-supported secessionist region of South Ossetia. Upon the orders of President Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian army committed an atrocious act of aggression and genocide against a civilian population, killing about 2,000 Russian citizens and destroying the region’s economic assets, social infrastructure and housing.

Russia then exercised its legitimate right to protect its peacekeepers and citizens, which NATO condemned as excessive use of force at the alliance’s foreign ministers’ meeting that followed at U.S. insistence.

Incidentally, shortly before that Washington vetoed Russia’s request to hold an extraordinary meeting of the NATO-Russia Council at which Russia’s envoy to the bloc, Dmitry Rogozin, was to tell his partners the truth about what really happened in South Ossetia. He would have given facts undistorted by Western propaganda, which, unfortunately, was what Western media did.

A logical question arises: Why do we need the NATO-Russia Council at all — a body ostensibly established to give Moscow and its NATO partners a chance to freely exchange opinions on important international issues without external pressure? It was expected to be different from the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council, where 26 countries had opposed Russia alone.

Apparently, certain NATO leaders aren’t happy with an honest, unbiased dialogue and partnership with Moscow. They prefer a policy of confrontation and ultimatums. Well, Russia has a response to that. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov put it, Russia needs NATO as much as NATO needs Russia. No more, no less.

The programs jointly implemented by Moscow and NATO have been drafted to incorporate the interests of all partners. They involve such issues as military reform, anti-terrorist efforts, exchange of military delegations, training Afghan and Central Asian agencies in tactics to combat drug trafficking, theater missile defense (not to be confused with the planned U.S. missile defense in Eastern Europe) and crisis management.

The latter includes liquidating the aftermath of natural disasters, fighting weapons of mass destruction and missile technology proliferation, plus illegal migration, shipwreck rescue and much more.

Russia and NATO also have working groups and cooperation committees on airspace control, scientific research, the environment and a mechanism of permanent consultations on global political issues. Many of these programs could be mothballed now. Most importantly, the NATO-Russia anti-terrorist cooperation is at risk. Russian guided-missile frigate Ladny never went to the Mediterranean where it was to participate in NATO anti-terror operation Active Endeavor.

As for anti-terrorist efforts in Afghanistan, Moscow has not yet banned NATO aircraft carrying cargo to their contingents fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida from flying across its territory on their way to Central Asia. Neither is there any hint that transportation of such cargo by Russian railways was interrupted — at least not yet.

The Kremlin could be waiting for NATO to react to the suspension of military cooperation and the cancellation of joint maneuvers and planned exchange of military delegations. It probably will make further decisions proceeding from Brussels’ moves. The choice is larger than either party would be comfortable with. It is NATO’s turn to make a move. Its political and military competence is being tested now, both in Afghanistan and in Europe.
Courtesy:Arab News

KABUL: Between 1979 and 1989 thousands of Soviet soldiers died in Afghanistan fighting the US-backed mujahideen. But 110 British soldiers have been killed in the country since 2001 as fighting rages with the Taleban. So what do Russian veterans think of Afghanistan and the current Nato campaign? “It’s not the truth,” said a voice over my shoulder. I turned round. A man had seen me taking notes as I looked at an exhibition of a pristine Soviet field hospital. Read the full story

KABUL: Between 1979 and 1989 thousands of Soviet soldiers died in Afghanistan fighting the US-backed mujahideen. But 110 British soldiers have been killed in the country since 2001 as fighting rages with the Taleban. So what do Russian veterans think of Afghanistan and the current NATO campaign? “It’s not the truth,” said a voice over my shoulder. I turned round. A man had seen me taking notes as I looked at an exhibition of a pristine Soviet field hospital. Read the full story