Pakistan Friday blocked its hockey and squash teams' tour of India because of the tense relations between the two countries, with Sports Minister Aftab Shah Jilani saying the authorities were concerned about the players' security in India in the current circumstances.
"We sought advice from the foreign ministry and took the decsion that it's not advisable to send the teams to India over security fears," Jilani told reporters here.
Pakistan's hockey team was scheduled to feature in a four-nation tournament at Chandigarh Jan 31-Feb 8 alongside Germany, Holland and hosts India.
The national squash team was readying for the Asian Junior Squash Championships at Chennai Jan 16-23.
The Pakiastani government decision was not surprising, considering the fact that India cancelled its cricket team's tour of Pakistan last month following the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. After that decision, Pakistan was expected to retaliate by refusing to let its sportsmen travel to India.
The minister stressed that sporting ties between the countries could be revived if the situation improved.
"Once we have normalcy in the situation, we can review of our participation in sporting events in India," Jilani said.
In 2001 too, Pakistan and India broke off sporting ties in the wake of the terror attack on the Indian parliament. India lifted the ban in October 2003, paving way for its cricket team's visit to Pakistan a year later.
India Tuesday indicated it was keeping all options open, including a military strike against terrorist camps in Pakistan and suspension of bilateral dialogue, and underlined that it will take "appropriate action" to protect its territory from terror attacks emanating from the neighbouring country.
"We will await the response from Pakistan to the demarche (formal protest note)," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters here on the sidelines of a function to inaugurate the India-Arab Forum Tuesday morning.
"We have in our demarche asked for the arrests and handing over of those persons who are settled in Pakistan and who are fugitives under the Indian law," he added.
"There are lists (containing the names) of about 20 persons. (These) lists are sometimes altered and this exercise is going on and we have reviewed it in our demarche," Mukherjee said.
"What I am saying is every sovereign country has its right to protect its territorial integrity and take appropriate action as and when it feels it is necessary to take that appropriate action," Mukherjee later told the NDTV news channel in an interview.
"As and when it takes place you will get to know. Nobody publicises or advertises it. I am not making any comment on military option," he replied when asked whether he would rule out military option against terrorist groups like the Lashker-e-Toiba (LeT) which are suspected to have engineered the Mumbai terror strikes.
"What will be done, time will show and you will come to know," Mukherjee said.
India's "most wanted 20" list includes known terror masterminds like mob boss Dawood Ibrahim, Maulana Masood Azhar, the founder of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) which was suspected behind the Dec 13, 2001 attack on the Indian parliament, and LeT chief Hafez Mohammed Sayeed.
New Delhi has suspected these fugitives to be behind major terror strikes in India over the years.
India has, however, not set a time-frame for Pakistan to the demarche it issued Monday that included the return of India's 20 most wanted men, the dismantling of terrorist camps and the proscription of anti-India militant outfits.
"We have not set a time-frame for Pakistan's response to our demarche. We will give them a reasonable amount of time," a senior official said on condition of anonymity.
"All options are open. Nothing has been decided as yet," he replied when asked what steps India will take in case Pakistan refuses to concede to its demands.
Pakistan has responded by offering India a joint team to probe the Mumbai attacks and underlined it will "frame a response" to New Delhi's demand for handing over 20 of India's most wanted men.
But India has cold-shouldered what it sees a diversionary ploy by Pakistan to impress the international community about its sincerity. "We want action on the ground," the official said.
The bilateral composite dialogue process has not been stalled yet, but if Pakistan fails to address India's concerns, New Delhi may decide to suspend the talks on the remaining items in the ongoing fifth round, said reliable sources, privy to the government's thinking on the subject.
"There is a stress on the dialogue process. The atmosphere has been vitiated by the Mumbai attacks," the official admitted.
The menu of likely actions by India in case of Pakistan's refusal to act on the ground could include military action. But this last resort action is not being considered yet. "You can't rule out anything. We will cross the bridge when it comes to it," the official said.
Investigations have disclosed that the Nov 26 Mumbai terror strikes bore the imprint of LeT, a banned militant outfit.
The probe has produced enough damning evidence that led New Delhi to officially tell Islamabad Tuesday that it holds elements in Pakistan responsible for the Mumbai terror strikes.
Pakistan has denied any link with the Mumbai blasts.
"The government of Pakistan has offered a joint investigating mechanism and a joint commission to India," Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in a nationwide telecast in Islamabad.
At the same time, India and Pakistan should not allow their composite dialogue to get derailed in the wake of the Mumbai killings, he said.
"We want better relations... and it is in the larger interest of the two countries to continue the composite dialogue process.
With Pakistan in the denial mode, India Tuesday briefed envoys of those countries whose nationals were killed in the NOv 26 terror carnage about the investigation and underlined that New Delhi expected Islamabad to act against militants based in its territory who engineered it.
Vivek Katju, special secretary (Political and International Organisations), held a meeting with the envoys and expressed India's deepest condolences to them.
The heads of missions from Germany, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Italy, Thailand, Israel and Mauritius were present at the meeting, official sources told IANS.
India's diplomatic offensive comes in response to repeated denials by Pakistan and Islamabad's frenzied calls to world capitals to convince the international community of its claimed innocence.
US Senator John McCain, the Republican candidate who lost the presidential race to Barack Obama, Tuesday said he was hopeful of Pakistan's cooperation with India in the Mumbai terrorist attack probe and opposed a military strike against Islamabad.
Underlining solidarity with India in the wake of the Nov 26 terror attacks, he said the US would not allow terrorists to provoke a confrontation between India and Pakistan.
"I assume the government of Pakistan will cooperate. They realise that this act of terror is not something that affects India but all the civilised nations," McCain said.
"No," he replied when asked whether the Mumbai attacks were a "fit case" for India to launch military action against Pakistan.
"We do not have hard evidence yet. Obviously, there are allegations that this organisation, this individual or this group were trained or operated or had some training in Pakistan," said McCain.
"This government is committed to better relations between India and Pakistan. They (those behind the Mumbai carnage) tried to provoke a confrontation between India and Pakistan," McCain told reporters here.
"This government will not allow it to happen," he said, indicating a pro-active US role in thwarting any breakdown of dialogue between India and Pakistan in the wake of the Nov 26 terror strikes.
"Relations between India and Pakistan were on an improving path. That was one of the objectives of terrorists (to strain ties between the two countries)," McCain said.
He, however, hoped that Pakistan will cooperate in addressing India's concerns over the terror strikes and show "transparency" in this connection.
"It is in the national interests of Pakistan to weaken these elements," he replied when asked whether the US will put pressure on Islamabad to act against those elements in Pakistan whom India suspect to be behind the Mumbai attacks.
McCain, the Republican senator from Arizona, was on his way to Bangladesh and Bhutan but decided to make a brief stopover here in the wake of the Mumbai strikes that has killed 183 people, including six Americans, and left 239 people injured.
McCain was echoing anxieties in Washington about the repercussions of potential India-Pakistan confrontation on the US war against fundamentalists in Afghanistan.
If such a situation arises, Pakistan is likely to move its troops from the Afghan border to its border with India - a move which could damage the US hopes of defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan.
McCain's trip to India comes a day before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives here in a bid to arrest the drift in fraying India-Pakistan ties in the wake of the terror attacks.
McCain, along with two other senators, Democrat Jospeh Lieberman and Lindsey O. Graham, called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here and underlined the US' solidarity with India in the fight against terrorism.
In their conversation with the prime minister, they offered to share the US' experiences in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Lieberman said.
They also told the prime minister about the counter-terror steps he US has taken, including the creation of the department of homeland security and a national counter-terrorism centre, said Lieberman.
President George W. Bush and president-elect Obama are acting in close coordination over the Mumbai terror strikes, the Republican senator said while underlining bipartisan support in the US to India in the aftermath of the terror strikes.
"We would be meeting Pakistan General (Ashfaq) Kiyani over the weekend and raise some questions with him," Liebermann told reporters here.
Indo-Asian News Service
The leaders of Pakistan's two main opposition parties have agreed to form a coalition government following their triumph in parliamentary elections last month.
Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto -- and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced the pact Sunday following talks near the capital, Islamabad.
The leaders said parliament will quickly restore senior judges who were fired by President Pervez Musharraf.
The two parties have been engaged in coalition talks since the February 18th elections, in which they routed allies of the president.
Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) won the most seats in the election but not enough to rule by itself. Mr. Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) party came in second.
On Friday, Mr. Musharraf said he would fully support the incoming government, as long as peace is maintained.
Mr. Musharraf is expected to convene the new parliament within the next two weeks.
People rejected religious parties and former ruling party Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) that was backed by President Pervez Musharraf as the early results were announced for 115 National Assembly seats out of 272. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's PML-N and assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) made big gains in elections that were held amid fears of violence and rigging allegations by the opposition against Musharraf and his allies.
According to the results announced for the 140 National Assembly (NA) seats, PML-N was leading with 52 seats, followed by PPP with 44 seats, PML-Q 17 and Mutahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM) with power base in urban Sindh got nine seats. Other seats were captured by smaller parties or independent candidates.
"Yes there was pre-poll rigging and it's because of that, the Q-League succeeded in getting a couple of seats," PML-N spokesman Ahsan Iqbal told IANS. However, there has been no claim so far by PML-N to form the government.
In provincial assemblies, PML-N was leading in Punjab with 81 seats followed by PPP with 43 seats and PML-Q with just 36. In Sindh PPP was ahead with 31 seats followed by MQM with 24. The Punjab assembly has 380 seats.
In Balochistan PML-Q, however, was on the top with 11 seats in the house of 65, followed by Balochistan National Party (BNP) with seven seats. In the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), the Awami National Party (ANP) was ahead with 27 seats followed by PML-N with 16 seats.
The election trend generally shows anti-Musharraf vote who said Monday that he will accept the results and is ready to work with any party. But Sharif, who returned to country seven years of exile, had repeatedly said that he would not work with Musharraf.
On the other hand Musharraf's another ally MQM chief Altaf Hussain was quick to announce support to PML-N and PPP in forming governments in centre and Sindh province.
Several top leaders of Musharraf-backed PML-Q lost in the polls mostly by PML-N in Punjab and by PPP in Sindh. PML-Q president and former prime minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain was defeated on both the NA seats including on his home constituency in Gujarat by PPP candidate Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, the electoral battlefields they have dominated for decades.
Six-time winner Sheikh Rashid Ahmed from Rawalpindi was defeated miserably by PML-N's Hanif Abbasi and Javed Hashmi where he ruled for over two decades. Former speaker of the National Assembly Chaudhary Amir Hussain was defeated by a female candidate Firdous Ashiq of PPP who had recently joined it after developing differences with PML (Q) leadership
Former defence minister Rao Sikandar Iqbal, a closed aide of Musharraf too lost his seat to PPP Sajjadul Hassan by a big margin. PML-Q's stalwart Hamid Nasir Chatta was defeated by Iftikhar Ahmed Cheema in Gujranwala.
Several former ministers including Liaquat Jotoi, former commerce minister Hamayun Akhtar Khan, former Minister for religious affairs Ijazul Haq have also lost their seats.
The polls were the final step in Pakistan's transition to democracy after eight years of military rule, and the results appeared to dispel international and national fears that the elections would be rigged.
"If the results are confirmed we will play the part of the opposition as effectively as we can," said PML-Q spokesman Tariq Azeem adding there is no reason for not accepting the results.
But another PML-Q official said that they were shocked by the results and accused Musharraf of betraying the party. "We never thought about such shocking results," he told IANS, requesting anonymity.
However, the results should be equally shocking for Musharraf, who left the army chief's position in December before taking oath as civilian president. Until a day before the polls, he was hopeful that PML-Q would win the polls. But now things could be really difficult for him with the parliament packed by his opponents that too by the party of man whom he sent into exile after overthrowing his government into 1999.
"His fate is in balance now...he may have to resign," the PML-Q leader said. Musharraf last month said that if the new parliament tried to impeach him he would prefer to resign rather to face humiliation.
In such a situation Musharraf's best option could be to woo PPP instead of working with PML-N, said the leader who was considered to be very close to Musharraf in the previous setup.
Indo-Asian News Service
A very busy Khan took out 15 minutes to speak to IANS over phone from Islamabad: Excerpts from the interview:
Q: Who do you think will be the next PM?
A: It's too soon to make such predictions, but I can predict a lot of street protest in the coming days. There has been unprecedented pre-poll rigging already and the battle lines are already drawn against the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q (also known as the King's party).
Q: What are your predictions for the Pakistan Peoples Party? Will there be a split soon? Is something like that in the air?
A: After the elections if PPP wins and makes a deal with the government, I suspect the die-hard stalwarts of the PPP, who still believe in Bhutto's ideology, will find it difficult to stay together. If they do not ask for the reinstatement of the judges, they are playing Musharraf's game; the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) will react strongly.
Q: But before her death, Benazir Bhutto was pandering to President Musharraf's wishes?
A: Yes, but she enjoyed that authority, her husband, Asif Ali Zardari does not wield the same acceptance.
Q: What are the chances of the PML-Q winning the polls?
A: If they do it will be the mother of all riggings because people are now voting for PPP or the PML-N (Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz) out of hatred for Musharraf and his policies. The country is going through its worst turmoil - in the form of an economic meltdown.
Q: Asif Ali Zardari has warned of civil war if elections are rigged? Should this be taken seriously?
A: I believe this could well be the situation for Sindh if PPP does not win there. And if PML-Q wins, there will be the worst backlash ever all over the country.
Q: The results are somewhat predictable - a hung parliament or a weak coalition government. Is that the best plan or would you like to share a better plan out of the crises we are in?
A: Given the challenges we face now, the only one way out of the crises we are in is an immediate re-instatement of the judiciary, stop muzzling the media and bring the Election Commission of Pakistan under the protection of the independent judiciary.
Q: By whom, as Musharraf will not let that happen, he has made it plain?
A: This can be done by the chief of army staff, General Ashfaque Kiyani and Musharraf can make his exit.
Q: So are you saying that Musharraf can leave without undoing all the wrongs he has done? Isn't that letting him go off easily?
A: Well the longer he stays, the more damage he is doing to the country by his immoral compromises.
Q: Any face-saving exit strategy for Pervez Musharraf?
A: There can be an agreement that if he leaves now, Article 6 of the constitution (death penalty) won't be invoked. He will be assured that no harm will come to him if he gets off the tiger he is riding.
Q: What do you make of General Ashfaque Kayani's move of calling away all army personnel from civilian offices?
A: That was a move in the right direction, I must say. But he must now stop the killing of our people. It is exacerbating the situation and he must realise that there has to be a solution other than a military one to stop rising militancy and extremism.
Q. What have parties such as yours gained by boycotting the elections? How can democracy be served?
A: We are standing by the deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and boycotting the elections held under Musharraf's illegal Provisional Constitutional Order.
Q: Would you not have served the people of Pakistan better by having a seat in the parliament?
A: No, I would not have. I sat in the parliament for five years, which was a rubber stamp parliament and did more damage by staying there.
(Zofeen Ebrahim can be contacted at zofeen28@hotmail.com)
Indo-Asian News Service
President Pervez Musharraf has won the much-criticised presidential election with part of the opposition (Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal and some smaller parties) resigning from the federal parliament and provincial assemblies and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) abstaining from voting.
However, there is general expectation that the Supreme Court is likely to uphold the validity of the election despite the diminution in legitimacy caused by the dying assemblies and significant non-participation in the Electoral College.
Just the day before the election Musharraf issued an ordinance quashing and withdrawing all corruption cases against all politicians filed during 1988-1999 period. This was called a national reconciliation measure and that cleared all cases against self-exiled former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. With this ordinance, Bhutto will be able to return to Pakistan Oct 18 as announced earlier, without fear of being arrested.
The president has disclosed that a power-sharing agreement is being worked out between him and Bhutto with US mediation. His decision to shed his uniform and effect transition to democracy flowed from that. Exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has not been allowed to return on the basis of the National Reconciliation Ordinance.
Under the present constitution, as modified by Musharraf, Bhutto is barred from becoming prime minister as a limitation of just two terms has been prescribed. But she has insisted that this ban should be lifted to enable her to become prime minister a third time. The US mediation should have secured this condition. Musharraf has declared that the army and intelligence will have no role in the government in future.
In Pakistan a common joke is that an army general usually stands behind or actually sits on the chair of authority irrespective of the nature of the regime. Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif as prime ministers had full experience of this and it was Sharif's attempt to assert his authority over the army that led to his overthrow.
Therefore, one wonders how the Pakistan Army, used to wielding power directly or indirectly over the last 49 years, will accept overnight a totally apolitical role.
Musharraf, after he doffs his uniform, will continue to be civilian president with most of the enhanced presidential powers and his nominee will be the army chief.
During the earlier two tenures as prime minister, Bhutto had to share power with a president who had powers to dismiss her and dissolve the National Assembly and the army chief.
The prime minister did not have much say on defence, nuclear policy, intelligence, foreign policy, especially towards India, Afghanistan and the US.
During the power-sharing negotiations Bhutto has been demanding that these subjects should come under the prime minister's jurisdiction.
Last time in 1988 when the Americans brokered a deal between the Pakistan Army and Bhutto they persuaded her to accept the limited powers and become prime minister.
This time Musharraf also has as much of their support as Bhutto. Therefore, the US should be facing a dilemma in devising a power sharing agreement that would effectively serve its interests, namely, effective counter-terrorism campaign.
The powers of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to engage in domestic intelligence gathering were vested in it by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir's father, at the height of his autocratic exercise of power. Given the history of Pakistani politics, one wonders whether Bhutto would be willing to abolish ISI's jurisdiction in this field and forgo an advantage over her political opponents.
The nuclear programme in Pakistan has been the army's sole prerogative since 1977. Even Sharif, while trying to assert his authority on the army chief, left the nuclear programme undisturbed in army control.
Bhutto had asserted that when she gained power she will allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to the notorious proliferator A. Q. Khan.
The US, which has promoted the Musharraf-Benazir rapprochement, would like to have access to Khan. Given the fact that all army chiefs from Mirza Aslam Beg to Musharraf were privy to Khan's proliferation it is a moot question whether the civilian prime minister will get jurisdiction over the nuclear programme.
In regard to command over nuclear arsenal the present nuclear command procedures vest it in a council presided over by the president. While the prime minister will be a member of the command authority, the real command chain will be the president to the army chief to the strategic force commander.
Bhutto was prepared to accept prime ministership with restricted powers in 1988 and the Americans encouraged her to do so.
Now Bhutto wants to get back to power and political mainstream and to get her husband freed from charges of murdering her brother. The US has much greater stake in securing the cooperation of the Pakistan Army and ISI. In these circumstances her bargaining power has severe limitations.
By the time power-sharing negotiations are to be finalized Musharraf will be the legitimate president of Pakistan still with the power to remove the bar on Bhutto becoming prime minister for the third time.
Bhutto's bargaining strength will depend upon the performance of her party in the elections. It is reasonable to expect that her party should do better than what it did in 2002. At the same time there have been fissures in her party and a number of her party men had moved over to support Musharraf.
Pakistan will have a new experience of an ex-general as a civilian president who had been in power as a military ruler for the previous eight years and who had selected and appointed all key functionaries of the state.
Yet free and fair elections in Pakistan and a prime minister even with limited powers will be an improvement over the present situation. What difference it would make to the war on terrorism and to developing Pakistan as a moderate Islamic state remains to be seen.
Pakistan poses a bigger threat than Afghanistan and Iraq in the US war on terror as the Taliban cannot ask for a better nation to hide in and "come and go as they please", according to Newsweek.
In a cover story titled "The Most Dangerous Nation in the World Isn't Iraq. It's Pakistan", the Oct 29 issue of the US magazine looks at how Pakistan has become a safe haven for Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists.
After the Sep 11, 2001, terror attacks, the US successfully deposed the fundamentalist Taliban leadership in Afghanistan, it says. But in the years since then, there have been an increasing number of signs of a resurgence and the influence of Taliban has crossed the border into neighbouring Pakistan, which many now fear has become a safe haven for terrorists.
Today no other country on earth is arguably more dangerous than Pakistan, according to the magazine. Unlike countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq, Pakistan has everything Osama bin Laden could ask for: political instability, a trusted network of radical Islamists, an abundance of angry anti-Western recruits, secluded training areas, access to state-of-the-art electronic technology, regular air service to the West and security services that do not always do what they are supposed to do.
Then there is the country's large and growing nuclear programme. The conventional story about Pakistan has been that it is an unstable nuclear power with distant tribal areas in terrorist hands, the magazine says.
What is new, and more frightening, is the extent to which Taliban and Al Qaeda elements have now turned much of the country, including some cities, into a base that gives terrorists more room to manoeuvre, both in Pakistan and beyond. Taliban fighters now pretty much come and go as they please inside Pakistan, Newsweek says.
Their sick and injured get patched up in private hospitals there. "Until I return to fight, I'll feel safe and relaxed here," Abdul Majadd, a Taliban commander who was badly wounded this summer during a fire fight against British troops in Afghanistan, is quoted as telling Newsweek after he was evacuated to Karachi for emergency care.
"Pakistan is like your shoulder that supports your RPG," another Taliban commander Mullah Momin Ahmed told Newsweek, barely a month before a US air strike killed him last September in Afghanistan's eastern Ghazni province. "Without it you couldn't fight. Thank God Pakistan is not against us."
According to Newsweek, reporters in Peshawar, a strategic Pakistani border city some 80 km east of the historic Khyber Pass and the Afghan border, say it's not unusual these days to receive phone calls from visiting Taliban commanders offering interviews or asking where to find a cheap hotel, a good restaurant or a new cell phone.
Armed militants have also effectively seized control in places like the picturesque Swat Valley, where a jihadi leader named Mullah Fazlullah rides a black horse and commands hundreds of men under the noses of a nearby Pakistani Army division that seldom leaves its barracks.
Newsweek cites Bruce Riedel, the former senior director for South Asia on the US National Security Council, as suggesting that Pakistan's large and growing nuclear programme is another cause for concern.
"If you were to look around the world for where Al Qaeda is going to find its bomb, it's right in their backyard," he is quoted as saying. And despite the US government's assertion that Musharraf's government has tight control over its nuclear-weapons programme, radicals would not need to steal a whole bomb in order to create havoc.
Pervez Hoodbhoy, a noted nuclear physicist at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, is also quoted as saying that outside experts don't really know how much highly enriched uranium Pakistan has produced in the past and how much remains in existing stocks.
"No one has a real idea about that," he says. "That means that stuff could have gotten out. Little bits here or there. But we really don't know."
Indo-Asian News Service