Pakistan, Russia agree to promote bilateral relations

MOSCOW: Pakistan and Russia on Wednesday agreed to promote and enhance bilateral relations in different fields including trade, energy and people to people contacts.
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar met her Russian counterpart Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov in Moscow on Wednesday. Khar, on a three day visit to the Russian Federation, held in-depth talks with Lavrov on expanding and diversifying relations between Pakistan and Russia.
The two foreign ministers exchanged views on regional and global issues of mutual interest. They also discussed increasing cooperation in energy, infrastructure development, agriculture, science and technology sectors.
Addressing a joint press conference after the meeting, Khar said there has been a scope for cooperation between the two countries in different areas and all aspects for improving cooperation had been discussed.
Answering a question on Afghanistan, the Pakistani foreign minister said that Pakistan had a clear policy on extending full help and cooperation to any Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-owned peace initiative as it was the only solution to the problem.
She said both countries had also agreed to enhance parliamentary interaction besides increasing cooperation on the foreign minister level.
Energy sector cooperation
Khar said that the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India project (TAPI) and the Central Asia South Asia Regional Energy & Trade (CASA-1000) project were also discussed during the meeting.
She said Pakistan had received a very encouraging response from Russia for more investment in Pakistan Steel Mills and an interest in investing in different energy projects like Thar Coal.
“We are looking forward for the energy group meeting to be held within the first half of this year,” said the Pakistani foreign minister.
Regional cooperation
Speaking on regional cooperation, Khar said the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) was an exceptionally important forum and that Pakistan had been actively participating in the deliberations of the SCO and seeking permanent membership, and also thanked Russia for extending support in this matter.
Khar said that Pakistan was looking forward to hosting the next quadrilateral summit. She said she had extended invitation to the Russian leadership on behalf of President Asif Ali Zardari for the summit.

Ahmad Mukhtar urges reopening border to Nato

ISLAMABAD: Defence Minister Ahmad Mukhtar said Pakistan should reopen its Afghan border crossings to Nato troop supplies after negotiating a better deal with the coalition.
Pakistan closed the crossings over two months ago in response to American airstrikes that accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Mukhtar said on Tuesday that the government should negotiate new ”terms and conditions” with Nato and then reopen the border.
He did not provide details. But other Pakistani officials have said the government should levy additional fees on Nato for using the route through the country.
About 30 per cent of non-lethal supplies for US and coalition troops in Afghanistan travelled through Pakistan before the border closed.

Taliban denying Mullah Omar sent letter to Obama

KABUL: The Afghan Taliban are denying their leader Mullah Omar wrote to President Barack Obama last July.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid describes as ”baseless allegations” reports that Omar had sent a letter indicating an interest in talks key to ending the war in Afghanistan. Mujahid’s statement was emailed to media organisations on Saturday.
Current and former US officials told The Associated Press the letter purportedly from Omar was unsigned. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the letter and its contents are part of sensitive diplomacy with a fighting force that still targets US troops.
Two officials said the Obama administration did not directly respond to the letter, although it has broadened contacts with Omar’s emissaries since then.

Pakistan court moves to charge PM with contempt

slamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan's Supreme Court has summoned Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to appear February 13 to be charged with contempt of court, his lawyer said Thursday.
The move raises the stakes in a long-running battle over the court's demand that the prime minister investigate President Asif Ali Zardari, among others, for suspected corruption.
Gilani has refused, saying the head of state is immune from prosecution.
If he is found guilty of contempt, Gilani could be forced from office, but his lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan said Thursday that Gilani would keep his position unless electoral officials disqualified him.
Ahsan said he was advising the prime minister to appeal the Supreme Court's decision to charge him.
"I have concerns about the tension between the institutions," Ahsan told reporters.
Seven of the Supreme Court's judges are currently handling the prime minister's case. If he appeals, the chief justice can assemble a larger panel of Supreme Court judges to consider the motion.
The contempt charges could be the beginning of the end for Gilani, said Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, the head of Pakistan's Institute for Legislative Development and Transparency, a think thank.
"Once he's convicted he will stand to be disqualified to be a member of Parliament and therefore disqualified from being prime minister," Mehbook said. "The speaker of the National Assembly can drag the process (out) but I don't think the Supreme Court will allow that to happen."

Pakistan PM: No objection to prison

He welcomed the court move as a "good step towards the application of the rule of law.
"Far too many people get away with evading the rule of law" in Pakistan, he said. "This sends a message that no matter how powerful you are, you are not beyond the reach of the law."
Gilani will get a chance to defend himself in court, Mehboob said, but it is too late for him to stop the process by apologizing.
"That stage has passed," he said. "He could have done that when he was (first) summoned but he didn't."
Gilani told CNN last month that he would go to prison if necessary.
"If the court so desires, I have no objection," he said.
Gilani appeared in court over the contempt charge on January 19 in response to an order from judges to explain why he refuses to reopen lingering cases against President Zardari and others.
"We have the height of respect for the judiciary, but there is full immunity for the president -- not only in Pakistan, but in the entire world, too," Gilani said at the time.
Gilani's appearance last month came after weeks of political turbulence in Pakistan that have strained relations between the country's civilian and military leaders and fueled speculation about the possibility of a military coup.
The corruption cases stem from money-laundering charges against Zardari and his late wife, the former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. A Swiss court convicted them in absentia in 2003 of laundering millions of dollars.
After a controversial amnesty was granted in 2007 by then-President Pervez Musharraf to Zardari, Bhutto and thousands of other politicians and bureaucrats, the Pakistani government asked Swiss authorities to drop the case.
In 2009, the Pakistani Supreme Court ruled the amnesty was unconstitutional and called on the government to take steps to have the cases reopened.
The government has not done so, and the court apparently lost patience.
Since Gilani is the head of the government, the court justices view him as responsible and want him to explain why the government has not followed the court's order.
Gilani's argument that Zardari is exempt from prosecution did not appear to satisfy the judges.
"If the court concludes that he's in contempt, then they can take action against him," said Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui, a former chief justice of Pakistan. "The maximum sentence is six months in prison."
Even if he went to prison, Gilani would not necessarily lose his premiership.
Pakistani law says that after a contempt of court conviction, the court sends a notice to the speaker of the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament.
The speaker has 30 days to forward the notice to the Election Board, which has 90 days to decide if Gilani is disqualified as a member of Parliament and therefore disqualified as prime minister.
Ahsan, Gilani's lawyer, has expressed confidence his client will be cleared.
"The prime minister will survive," Ahsan said before Gilani's court appearance last month.
"There will be no storm," he said on GEO-TV, a Pakistani news channel.
Ahsan is one of the most prominent and widely respected lawyers in Pakistan. He led the so-called "lawyer's movement," an uprising in 2008 that helped bring about the reinstatement of the current Pakistani chief justice, Iftikhar Muahmmad Chaudhry, and dozens of other judges who were sacked by Musharraf in 2007.
Analysts said they believe Ahsan carries considerable influence in the Supreme Court because of his efforts to restore Pakistan's judiciary.

Pakistan assisting Taliban, says NATO report

A LEAKED NATO report based on thousands of Taliban prisoner interrogations has concluded the Afghan insurgency is poised to regain control of the country with backing from Pakistan as Western forces prepare to withdraw.
The so-called State of the Taliban report, compiled by US forces at Bagram air base outside Kabul, where more than 3000 Taliban prisoners are held, paints a worrying picture of an insurgency biding its time, and rebuilding its Afghan power base by stealth.
The document, which reinforces suspicions of Pakistani collusion with the Taliban, was angrily dismissed by Islamabad yesterday as "frivolous".
Publication of the classified report, leaked to London's The Times and the BBC, coincides uncomfortably with Pakistan's efforts to restore relations with its Western neighbour.
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar was due to meet her Afghan counterpart in Kabul yesterday, and President Hamid Karzai is scheduled to visit Islamabad this month.

"This is frivolous, to put it mildly," Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said of the report. "We are committed to non-interference in Afghanistan and expect all other states to strictly adhere to this principle. We are also committed to an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation process."
The comment was a thinly-veiled dig at the US, which has upset both the Pakistan and Afghan governments in recent weeks by pursuing bilateral peace talks with Taliban commanders in Qatar.
A spokesman for NATO forces in Kabul said yesterday the document "may provide some level of representative sampling of Taliban opinions and ideals, but clearly should not be used as any interpretation of campaign progress".
Pakistan has consistently denied accusations it provides support and training for Afghan Taliban forces and safe haven for its leadership as insurance against India's growing regional influence in Afghanistan and over the Afghan government.
But the report finds Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency is actively colluding with the Taliban in attacks against coalition forces in Afghanistan.
"ISI officers tout the need for continued jihad and expulsion of foreign invaders from Afghanistan," concluded the report's authors, based on some 27,000 interrogations of more than 4000 Taliban and al-Qa'ida detainees.
Many Taliban prisoners reportedly talked of a network of Pakistani spies and interlocutors who provided advice to Taliban forces.
While there was no evidence the Pakistani state was arming the Afghan Taliban, prisoners said weapons such as advanced explosives, mines and suicide vests came from ISI-sponsored Punjab militant groups based in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
Crucially, the report dismisses suggestions that rogue elements of the ISI might be providing support for the insurgency independently of the agency's leadership or the government.
Rather, it finds the Pakistan government "remains intimately involved" with the Taliban. "ISI is thoroughly aware of Taliban activities and the whereabouts of all senior Taliban personnel. Senior Taliban leaders meet regularly with ISI personnel, who advise on strategy and relay any pertinent concerns of the government of Pakistan," it said.
The report cites examples of increased Taliban influence in areas where NATO forces have withdrawn, and says there has been unprecedented interest in the past year in joining the Taliban.
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