ISLAMABAD: In a rare diplomatic foray and the strongest sign yet of increasing Taliban political clout in the region, the head of the insurgents’ political office led a delegation to Uzbekistan to meet senior Foreign Ministry officials there, Uzbek and Taliban officials said.
Taliban political chief Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai represented the insurgents in the four-day talks that ended on Friday and included meetings with Uzbekistan’s Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov as well as the country’s special representative to Afghanistan Ismatilla Irgashev.
The meetings follow an offer made by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev in March to broker peace in Afghanistan.
Suhail Shaheen, spokesman for the Taliban’s political office in Qatar, said in a statement to The Associated Press on Saturday that discussions covered everything from withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan to peace prospects and possible Uzbek-funded development projects that could include railway lines and electricity.
Shaheen said Uzbek officials discussed their security concerns surrounding the development projects.
“The Taliban also exchanged views with the Uzbek officials about the withdrawal of the foreign troops and reconciliation in Afghanistan,” he said in the statement.
Uzbek’s Foreign Affairs Ministry website offered a terse announcement on the visit, saying “the sides exchanged views on prospects of the peace process in Afghanistan.”
Still, the meetings are significant, coming as the Taliban are ramping up pressure on Afghan security forces with relentless and deadly attacks. Washington has held preliminary talks with the insurgents in an attempt to find a negotiated end to Afghanistan’s protracted war.
The Taliban have gained increasing attention from Russia as well as Uzbekistan, which view the insurgency as a bulwark against the spread of the Daesh group in Afghanistan. The United States has accused Moscow of giving weapons to the Taliban.
Still, Andrew Wilder, vice president of Asia programs at the US Institute of Peace said Washington would welcome a “constructive” Russian role in finding a way toward a peace pact in Afghanistan.
“What wouldn’t be helpful would be if the Uzbek efforts to facilitate lines of communication with the Taliban are not closely coordinated with the Afghan government,” he said.
“High profile talks by foreign governments with the Taliban that exclude the Afghan government risk providing too much legitimacy to the Taliban without getting much in return,” Wilder said.
On Sunday, Ehsanullah Taheri, the spokesman of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, a wide-encompassing body tasked with finding a path to peace with the government’s armed opponents, said Uzbek officials had the Afghan government’s approval for the meeting.
“Afghan government welcomes any effort regarding the Afghan peace process, especially those attempts which can lead us to an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace process,” said Taheri.
Still, there was no indication from either side that progress toward substantive talks between the Taliban and the government was made.
For Uzbekistan, the Daesh presence is particularly worrisome as hundreds of its fighters are former members of the radical Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a declared terrorist group considered the architect of some of the more horrific attacks carried out by Daesh in Afghanistan.
Last year, there were reports that the son of Tahir Yuldashev, the powerful Uzbek leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, who was killed in a US missile strike in Pakistan in 2009, was leading efforts to help expand Daesh influence in Afghanistan.
Last week, Afghan security forces reportedly rescued scores of Afghan Uzbeks who had declared their allegiance to Daesh when they came under attack by Taliban fighters in northern Afghanistan, not far from the border with Uzbekistan. The rescued Uzbek warriors subsequently declared they would join the peace process.
Most of those rescued were Afghan Uzbeks loyal to Afghanistan’s Vice President Rashid Dostum who went over and joined Daesh after Dostum fell out with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and fled to Turkey in May last year to live in self-imposed exile there.
Coincidentally, the rescue of Afghan Uzbeks from the battle with the Taliban came just days after Dostum returned to Afghanistan and reconciled with Ghani’s government.
Taliban’s political stature rises with talks in Uzbekistan
Taliban’s political stature rises with talks in Uzbekistan
- The meetings follow an offer made by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev in March to broker peace in Afghanistan
- Washington has held preliminary talks with the insurgents in an attempt to find a negotiated end to Afghanistan’s protracted war
Pakistan locks down capital ahead of a planned rally by Imran Khan supporters
- Interior Ministry is considering a suspension of mobile phone services in parts of Pakistan in the coming days
- Pakistan has banned gatherings of five or more people in Islamabad for two months to deter Khan’s supporters
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is sealing off its capital, Islamabad, ahead of a planned rally by supporters of imprisoned former premier Imran Khan.
It’s the second time in as many months that authorities have imposed such measures to thwart tens of thousands of people from gathering in the city to demand Khan’s release.
The latest lockdown coincides with the visit of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who arrives in Islamabad on Monday.
Local media reported that the Interior Ministry is considering a suspension of mobile phone services in parts of Pakistan in the coming days. On Friday, the National Highways and Motorway Police announced that key routes would close for maintenance.
It advised people to avoid unnecessary travel and said the decision was taken following intelligence reports that “angry protesters” are planning to create a law and order situation and damage public and private property on Sunday, the day of the planned rally.
“There are reports that protesters are coming with sticks and slingshots,” the statement added.
Multicolored shipping containers, a familiar sight to people living and working in Islamabad, reappeared on key roads Saturday to throttle traffic.
Pakistan has already banned gatherings of five or more people in Islamabad for two months to deter Khan’s supporters and activists from his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI.
Khan has been in prison for more than a year in connection and has over 150 criminal cases against him. But he remains popular and the PTI says the cases are politically motivated.
A three-day shutdown was imposed in Islamabad for a security summit last month.
Indian man awakes on funeral pyre
- Doctors sent Rohitash Kumar, 25, to mortuary instead of conducting postmortem after he fell ill
- Kumar was rushed to hospital on Friday for treatment but was confirmed dead later
JAIPUR: An Indian man awoke on a funeral pyre moments before it was to be set on fire after a doctor skipped a postmortem, medical officials said Saturday.
Rohitash Kumar, 25, who had speaking and hearing difficulties, had fallen sick and was taken to a hospital in Jhunjhunu in the western state of Rajasthan on Thursday.
Indian media reported he had had an epileptic seizure, and a doctor declared him dead on arrival at the hospital.
But instead of the required postmortem to ascertain the cause of death, doctors sent him to the mortuary, and then to be burned according to Hindu rites.
D. Singh, chief medical officer of the hospital, told AFP that a doctor had “prepared the postmortem report without actually doing the postmortem, and the body was then sent for cremation.”
Singh said that “shortly before the pyre was to be lit, Rohitash’s body started movements,” adding that “he was alive and was breathing.”
Kumar was rushed to hospital for a second time, but was confirmed dead on Friday during treatment.
Authorities have suspended the services of three doctors and the police have launched an investigation.
NATO chief discusses ‘global security’ with Trump
- NATO allies say keeping Kyiv in the fight against Moscow is key to both European and American security
Brussels: NATO chief Mark Rutte held talks with US President-elect Donald Trump in Florida on the “global security issues facing the alliance,” a spokeswoman said Saturday.
The meeting took place on Friday in Palm Beach, NATO’s Farah Dakhlallah said in a statement.
In his first term Trump aggressively pushed Europe to step up defense spending and questioned the fairness of the NATO transatlantic alliance.
The former Dutch prime minister had said he wanted to meet Trump two days after Trump was elected on November 5, and discuss the threat of increasingly warming ties between North Korea and Russia.
Trump’s thumping victory to return to the US presidency has set nerves jangling in Europe that he could pull the plug on vital Washington military aid for Ukraine.
NATO allies say keeping Kyiv in the fight against Moscow is key to both European and American security.
“What we see more and more is that North Korea, Iran, China and of course Russia are working together, working together against Ukraine,” Rutte said recently at a European leaders’ meeting in Budapest.
“At the same time, Russia has to pay for this, and one of the things they are doing is delivering technology to North Korea,” which he warned was threatening to the “mainland of the US (and) continental Europe.”
“I look forward to sitting down with Donald Trump to discuss how we can face these threats collectively,” Rutte said.
Indian man awakes on funeral pyre
JAIPUR, India: An Indian man awoke on a funeral pyre moments before it was to be set on fire after a doctor skipped a postmortem, medical officials said Saturday.
Rohitash Kumar, 25, who had speaking and hearing difficulties, had fallen sick and was taken to a hospital in Jhunjhunu in the western state of Rajasthan on Thursday.
Indian media reported he had had an epileptic seizure, and a doctor declared him dead on arrival at the hospital.
But instead of the required postmortem to ascertain the cause of death, doctors sent him to the mortuary, and then to be burned according to Hindu rites.
D. Singh, chief medical officer of the hospital, told AFP that a doctor had “prepared the postmortem report without actually doing the postmortem, and the body was then sent for cremation.”
Singh said that “shortly before the pyre was to be lit, Rohitash’s body started movements,” adding that “he was alive and was breathing.”
Kumar was rushed to hospital for a second time, but was confirmed dead on Friday during treatment.
Authorities have suspended the services of three doctors and the police have launched an investigation.
Fighting between armed sectarian groups in restive northwestern Pakistan kills at least 33 people
- Senior police officer said Saturday armed men torched shops, houses and government property overnight
- Although the two groups generally live together peacefully, tensions remain, especially in Kurram
PESHAWAR: Fighting between armed Sunni and Shiite groups in northwestern Pakistan killed at least 33 people and injured 25 others, a senior police officer from the region said Saturday.
The overnight violence was the latest to rock Kurram, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and comes days after a deadly gun ambush killed 42 people.
Shiite Muslims make up about 15 percent of the 240 million people in Sunni-majority Pakistan, which has a history of sectarian animosity between the communities.
Although the two groups generally live together peacefully, tensions remain, especially in Kurram.
The senior police officer said armed men in Bagan and Bacha Kot torched shops, houses and government property.
Intense gunfire was ongoing between the Alizai and Bagan tribes in the Lower Kurram area.
“Educational institutions in Kurram are closed due to the severe tension. Both sides are targeting each other with heavy and automatic weapons,” said the officer, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Videos shared with The Associated Press showed a market engulfed by fire and orange flames piercing the night sky. Gunfire can also be heard.
The location of Thursday’s attack was also targeted by armed men, who marched on the area.
Survivors of the gun ambush said assailants emerged from a vehicle and sprayed buses and cars with bullets. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack and police have not identified a motive.
Dozens of people from the district’s Sunni and Shiite communities have been killed since July, when a land dispute erupted in Kurram that later turned into general sectarian violence.
