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Tag: south asia
Kerry Heads To Sri Lanka On Historic Visit To Mend Ties

Kerry Heads To Sri Lanka On Historic Visit To Mend Ties

Washington (AFP) – Top U.S. diplomat John Kerry left early Friday on a landmark trip to Sri Lanka, the first such visit in a decade to the Indian Ocean island as it returns to the diplomatic fold.

Kerry is due to arrive around dawn Saturday in Colombo, becoming the first U.S. secretary of state to set foot in the South Asian nation since Colin Powell, who visited in 2005 in the wake of the devastating Asian tsunami.

Kerry will meet with new President Maithripala Sirisena, who was elected on January 8 as he unseated long-time strongman Mahinda Rajapakse at the ballot box.

The U.S. diplomat will also meet Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, a senior State Department official said, adding Kerry would also hold talks with political leaders from the Tamil minority.

The United States and Europe have hailed Sri Lanka’s stunning democratic transition hoping to turn the page on years of discord caused by the former regime’s brutal crackdown on separatist Tamil Tiger rebels.

Rajapakse won a landslide re-election victory in 2010, but critics say he failed to bring about reconciliation in the years that followed his crushing victory over the Tamil Tiger separatist group in 2009.

Sirisena has taken steps towards reconciliation with ethnic minority Tamils following the decades-long war which claimed at least 100,000 lives. There were allegations that at least 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed.

His government has pledged to investigate war crimes allegedly committed during the conflict in sharp contrast to former strongman Rajapakse who insisted no civilians were killed by his troops.

Colombo has sought “to indicate their desire to sort of reset Sri Lanka’s relations with the world community,” the State Department official said, welcoming the new government’s new 100-day reform program.

Under the plan, the government pledged to carry out a corruption probe into the Rajapakse regime and cooperate with a UN inquiry into any human rights abuses carried out in the civil war.

“The visit is intended to show that the U.S. government supports and applauds this vision, this effort,” the State Department official said.

It also aims to show there is a “future where we have a very good and mutually helpful relationship with a country that can be… a real beacon of democracy, of human rights, of reconciliation, where civil society and religious minorities can live freely.”

The UN, backed by the United States, has been investigating possible war crimes during the civil war for more than a year. In February however, the UN postponed its report at Colombo’s request to allow more time for Sri Lanka to complete its own investigation.

“We’ve always said that we support a domestic-driven process that is credible and viewed as credible by the Sri Lankan people,” the U.S. official said.

From Sri Lanka, Kerry is due to travel to Nairobi and then on to Djibouti before returning to Washington around May 8.

He will become the first ever secretary of state to visit Djibouti, a Horn of Africa country which has been thrust into the spotlight as thousands flee the chaos in Yemen, lying just across the narrow Red Sea Straits.

Photo: (©afp.com / Kena Betancur) U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry left on a landmark trip to Sri Lanka, the first such visit in a decade to the Indian Ocean island as it returns to the diplomatic fold.

Trade, Border Dispute On Agenda During Xi’s India Visit

Trade, Border Dispute On Agenda During Xi’s India Visit

By Sunrita Sen, dpa

NEW DELHI — Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in India Wednesday for a three-day trip aimed at boosting trade and investment between the two countries and to give a push to the resolution of a decades-old border dispute.

Xi, accompanied by his wife Peng Liyuan and a high level delegation, landed to a grand welcome at Ahmedabad, the principal city in the western state of Gujarat, which is also Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state.

Setting aside protocol, Modi waited to greet Xi as he arrived at a local hotel, where they held brief one-on-one talks followed by the signing of three agreements.

The agreements included a new partnership between the Chinese province of Guangdong and Gujarat, one of the more prosperous Indian states, and between the states’ capital cities Guangdong and Ahmedabad.

The third memorandum signed in the presence of the two leaders cemented the creation of an industrial development park in Gujarat underpinned by Chinese investment.

“Unique chemistry between India & China can script history & create a better tomorrow for the entire humankind,” Modi tweeted on the eve of Xi’s arrival.

In an article in The Hindu newspaper, Xi said “the combination of the ‘world’s factory’ and the ‘world’s back office’ will produce the most competitive production base and the most attractive consumer market.”

Xi is scheduled to fly to the Indian capital later Wednesday, ahead of delegation-level talks with Modi and other Indian leaders on Thursday.

Xi’s other engagements in Ahmedabad included a visit to Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram, a walk along the spruced-up Sabarmati riverfront and a dinner in luxury tents set up for the occasion.

Boosting trade and increasing investment by China in infrastructure projects including highways, railways, ports, and industrial zones are expected to be covered in the discussions Thursday.
Contentious issues including disputed areas along a shared 3,500-kilometre border and India’s large trade deficit with China are also on the agenda, a spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs said.

Xi’s visit comes amid reports in the Indian media of a fresh face-off between Indian and Chinese troops in the Ladakh region of India’s Jammu and Kashmir state.

Earlier this month, Modi made his first bilateral visit outside South Asia to Tokyo, which has increasingly bitter relations with Beijing. During the trip, Japan vowed to provide over 30 billion dollars in public and private lending and investment to India.

Indian media has been reporting that Xi is expected to pledge investments that exceed those promised by Japan.

“On a conservative estimate, I can say that we will commit investments of over 100 billion dollars or thrice the investments committed by Japan during our President Xi Jinping’s visit,” the Times of India quoted China’s consul general in Mumbai Liu Youfa as saying.

“These will be made in setting up of industrial parks, modernization of railways, highways, ports, power generation, distribution and transmission, automobiles, manufacturing, food processing, and textile industries.”

AFP Photo

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Al-Qaida Sets Up New Branch In Indian Subcontinent

Al-Qaida Sets Up New Branch In Indian Subcontinent

By Siddhartha Kumar, dpa

NEW DELHI — Terrorist group al-Qaida has set up a branch in South Asia, prompting Indian authorities to issue a nationwide alert Thursday, media reports and officials said.

Al-Qaida head Ayman al-Zawahiri announced the plan in a 55-minute video message posted on the internet Wednesday that Indian officials said appeared to be authentic.

Al-Zawahiri called on Muslims to “wage jihad against its enemies, to liberate its land, to restore its sovereignty, and to revive its caliphate.”

“Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent” will be led by Asim Umar, chief of al-Qaida’s Sharia Committee in Pakistan, it said.

Al-Zawahiri said the new outfit would be good for Muslims suffering injustice and oppression in Myanmar, Bangladesh, and parts of India with large Muslim populations, including Kashmir, Gujarat, and Assam.

Predominantly Hindu India has a substantial Muslim minority.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh met with top security officials to discuss the threat, a spokesman said.

Police in all states were on high alert and were stepping up intelligence-gathering on possible targets or recruitment drives, broadcaster CNN-IBN reported.

Gujarat, the home-state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is considered a target for Islamist militants because of the sectarian clashes with Hindus during his term as a chief minister of the state in 2002. More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.

In the video, the al-Qaida leader also reaffirmed his loyalty to Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

Anti-terrorism specialists said that al-Qaida may be competing for followers with the extremist group Islamic State that controls northern swathes of Syria and Iraq.

“There is despair in al-Qaida ranks that they have gotten increasingly marginalized due to the rise of the Islamic State,” said Sandeep Patil of the Mumbai-based think-tank Gateway House.

The government said it was adequately prepared to meet the security threat.

“Islamic militants have been reorganizing and consolidating in the region over past years and we have experienced several attacks including the Mumbai 2008 strike,” said P Chandra Shekhar Rao, convenor of the security cell of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

“If their (al Qaida’s) intention is to spread disorder and violence in India, then they should know that they will get a befitting reply,” BJP spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told reporters.

A total of 166 people were killed when gunmen attacked several public buildings in Mumbai in 2008, in an attack attributed to Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba.

But analysts warned that little has been done to improve security since the Mumbai attacks, despite promises by the new government to improve policing and intelligence.

“Al-Qaida presents a significant threat as because of its linkages with Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and other groups that already operate in India,” Patil said.

AFP Photo

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