Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | ??????? ????? | ???? | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ??????? | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | ???????? ????? | RUPEE NEWS | January 27th, 2009 | Moin Ansari | ???? ??????? | ????? ????? |

This MOU is DOA (Dead on Arrival). This MOUon transit rights will not see the light of day. It will die its natural and predicated death on a heap of papers under the designated title “Zardari Blunders“. This transit rights apostasy is part of the  usual Zardari recidivism that makes him such a reviled personality in Pakistan. For Pakistanis the more he sucks up to foreign elements, the more he sucks. Opponents see this sedition as one more reason to dump the duplicitous Mr. Zardari and find a less compliant president.

The glee in the Indian press is premature. The Clinton smiles would have been less jovial, if she had known the opposition and certain death that this MOU will face in Pakistan. For the MOU to become a treaty, it has to go through the National Assembly of Pakistan. That is where it will be filed properly in the round file.

One October 4th, 2008 Rupee News identified the treachery that has now been announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Zardari treason: India granted transit rights through Pakistan to Afghanistan. The fanfare was useless. This MOU will not stand. Despite weak-kneed bilabial denials by the invertebrates of  Pakistani Foreign Service, the fact remains that the Memorandum of Understanding is Clinton’s blueprint for the future of Afghanistan. Successive Pakistani governments have resisted the pressure to allow Delhi transit facilities to Afghanistan and Europe. Even Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto denied Bharat access to Kabul.

The transit facility for Indian tradetoAfghanistan has long remained a controversial issue and Pakistan had resisted it by linking it with the resolution of the Kashmir issue. The agreement to this effect between Zardari and Manmohan Singhis, therefore, unwarranted and represents outright violation of Pakistan ’s principled stand. The linkage of transit tradetoKabul with the settlement of the Kashmir dispute had provided Pakistan an edge to contain India ’s cherished plan to dominate the region economically. After the Musharraf-Shaukat Azizduotrampled the nation’s resolve not to enter into trade withIndiabefore the resolution of the Kashmir issue, Mr Zardari’s nod to providetransitfacility to New Delhi for trade withAfghanistanis certainly one up in the process of compromises of the national interests. Cunning as it is, India will obviously expand its tradetothe Central Asian countries to realize its long cherished dream to monopolise trade in the region. And Kashmir dispute has obviously been thrown into the back burner. M Ashraf Mirza.

The compliant Mr. Zardari dreams of allowing Tata trucks to rumble through the GT Road to reach Kabul. Already the 4 Indian Consulates and their 107 centers in Afghanistan are training, arming and directing mercenaries to ravage Pakistani cities and provinces. Bharat had originally planned to use Chahbahar, the Iranian port built in competition to Gwader. After the Indo-Iranian tiff, the plan to reach Kabul through Chahbahar has been shelved. Delhi has realised that all roads to Kabul lead through Islamabad.

There exists unambiguous proof of Indian involvement in the situation that Pakistan is confronted with today at the hands of the terrorists and militants. NWFP Governor Owais Ghani (who formerly held the office of Governor Balochistan) has persistently pointed towards the Indian involvement in Pakistan ’s predicaments in Balochistan and Tribal Areas. Former President Pervez Musharraf handed over documentary evidence of Indian mischief in Balochistan to US President George W. Bush during his visit to the region in 2006. Yet we have opted to yield to New Delhi on matters of vital national interests in pursuit of the policy of appeasement. While India is bent upon undermining Pakistan ’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, we are facilitating India to consolidate economically, which in turn will help boost its military might. M Ashraf Mirza.

Pakistan’s road system are the arteries of the nation. Just like human arteries are important to a human being, the road network of a country are vital to its existence. A clogged artery in the heart creates a heart attacks. A clogged artery in the brain creates a stroke. Many medicines expunge foreign elements within an artery. Today Mr. Zardari has introduced foreign elements in the Pakistani arteries. The country needs to find the right medicine to expunge the foreign traffic from the Pakistani road system.

Allowing Indian goods to Kabul will hurt the Pakistani exports to Afghanistan.

Bangladesh faces similar pressure from India to allow transit facilities to Delhi. Dhaka has resisted the pressure. Right now Delhi’s goods have to be airlifted to Kabul or sent through Central Asia–a long circuitous route. For decades Pakistan has been under tremendous pressure from Kabul to allow Indian goods and supplies through its territories. Apparently this Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is another attempt to beguile the Pakistanis, slip this understanding as an accord as a first step towards a treaty. 

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton briefed a delegation of Afghan and Pakistani officials on the need to develop a coordinated strategy for stabilization.

“trilateral meetings” search results AFPAK MOU a sign of joint effort

Afghan and Pakistani leaders signed a memorandum of understanding in the transit sector Wednesday in what Washington sees as an early sign of regional unity.

In the presence of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington, ministers from both countries signed onto a plan that includes cross-border transit arteries that the United States hopes will connect vital trade routes.

Washington has stressed its revamped strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan is a comprehensive one that includes non-military aid and economic reform to supplement military efforts at calming the insurgency.

“We know success will not come from military means alone,” Clinton told a delegation Wednesday in Washington.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai joined his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardarifora series of trilateral meetings with U.S. officials to coordinate the effort at regional stabilization. Transit MOU a sign of unified effort; Maliki solidifies leadership By DANIEL GRAEBER, UPI CorrespondentPublished: May 6, 2009 at 5:42.UPI.

Even Bangladesh has refused to give transit right to India, and that is rights to travel through Bangledesh to other parts of India–Assam etc. Indian Transit through Bangladesh impunes on Dhaka sovereignty & very unpopular in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh turns down transit deal with India

Already India has built 107 “consulates” in Afghanistan. It send terror gangs from these bases. The free trucking will revamp these bases and cause more problems for Pakistan. How long with the Pakistani nation tolerate Mr. Zardari’s strange actions taken without the consent of the foreign office or the National Assembly?

Anwar Iqbal and Masood Haider of the Dawn reported this MOU as a done deal, however the credibility of Mr. Haider and Iqbal leaves much to be desired. Both of them report events that either not true or to earn a paycheck and show diligence, they simply copy stories from the Wall Stree Journal or other Rupert Murdock type of Anti-Pakistan tabloid media sources like the Washington Times or the New York Post.

WASHINGTON, May 6: Pakistan and Afghanistan signed on Wednesday a memorandum of understanding to begin talks on a transit trade agreement which will ultimately allow India to use the Wagah-Khyber route for trade with Kabul.

The memorandum of understanding commits the two “countries to achieving a trade transit agreement by the end of the year, which we believe will have great economic benefits for both peoples,” said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who hosted the Afghan and Pakistani presidents for the first round of the second trilateral talks.

“This is an historic event. This agreement has been under discussion for 43 years without resolution,” she said. “Afghanistan and Pakistan have reached an important milestone in their efforts to generate foreign investment and stronger economic growth and trade opportunities.”India to get Afghan transit trade route: Hillary oversees signing of accord By Anwar Iqbal and Masood Haider. Thursday, 07 May, 2009 | 06:57 AM PST

Pursuing its “On to the Oxus” policy first operationalized by Lord Curzon, India has tried to find various road links to Kabul. It has been a struggle. Neither the road from Tajikistan, nor the link from Chahbahar to Kabul via Iran has paid it the dividends that it has hoped for.  The road links from Amritsar to Wagah and then to Kabul via the Motorway or GT road will place an unprecedented burden on Pakistan road system. The roads were not built for Tata truck rumbling through the Pakistani arteries to Kabul. The transit of Indian trucks through Pakistan has huge security implications for Pakistani sovereignty. Most people in the security establishment and the army abhor the Indian support to anti-Pakistan elements. A minor road accident in Pakistan could turn into an international incident. It would be hard to turn off the spigot once commercial interests have permeated the economic lifeline of Pakistan.

There has been some backtracking by the Pakistani foreign office on this issue. The MOU does not mention “India” by name, so this left some room for the Foreign Office to obfuscate the issue. The opposition is on it like hawks, and the uproar in the Pakistani media challenges not only the MOU, it challenges the government of Mr. Zardari.

Pakistan today rejected the impression that it had granted “concessions” to India by signing a pact withAfghanistan to concludea new transit trade agreement by the end of this year.

I don’t know who has given concessions,” Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit told a weekly news briefing in response to a question about the memorandum of understanding signed yesterday between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Reports have said that once the new transit trade agreement is concluded, it will allow India to use the route between the Wagahland border and Pakistan’s Khyber tribal region for trade with Afghanistan.

However, Basit said the MoUonly relates to negotiations between Pakistan and Afghanistan on devising a new arrangement to replace the existing transit trade agreement. The MoU commits the two countries to concluding talks by the end of this year and “all issues will be taken care of when the negotiations begin,” he said.

Pakistan’s “engagement with India for a transit route to Afghanistan is a separate issue” and will be discussed bilaterally, Basit said. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday said the MoUcommits Pakistan and Afghanistan “to achieving a tradetransit agreement by the end of the year, which we believe will have great economic benefits for both peoples”.

Clinton also said the agreement had been “under discussion for 43 years without resolution”. She described the MoU as “an important milestone” in efforts by the two countries to generate foreign investment, economic growthand trade opportunities.

Though India is not mentioned in the MoU, reports said it would be the main beneficiary of a transit tradeagreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan as New Delhi is one of Kabul’s major trade partners.

India and Afghanistan have for long been making efforts to get Pakistan to open its land routes for transit trade between the two countries. AfPak MoUon transit trade: Pak denies concessions to India, Rezaul H Laskar/PTI / Islamabad May 7, 2009, 16:23 IST

Pakistan roads were built for the domestic traffic. As it is the US/NATO/ISAF forces use the transit facilities free of cost. They use Pakistani roads as if they were built for use by America. The US has not built any roads in Pakistan and is not entitled to use Pakistani roads. The local governments should charge high octroi from the trucks that cross over to Afghanistan.

As a practical matter, the Pakistani road system is not ready to take this additional traffic from India. The Pakistani infrastructure has to be improved dramatically, before this MOU on allowing Bharat transit facilities can be given any consideration.

Even though Mr. Zardari has signed the MOUontransit rights, this agree will not stand. The agreement is not worth the paper it is written on. The agreement, if any has to be debated in the National Assembly of Pakistan and the Senate. It will be torn to shred in the media and by the representatives in the assembly. If Mr. Zardari tries to push it through, there will be open rebellion in the PPPP.

The first draft of the MoU was sent to the Foreign Office by Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani, who reportedly consulted the Americans on the matter. The draft arrived here around two weeks ahead of President Asif Ali Zardari’s first bilateral visit to the U.S. It was finalized after some back and forth shuttling between Washington and Islamabad with specific inputs from the Foreign Office.

The Americans played a key role in signing of this MoU, which was not high on Pakistan’s priority list at this stage when the country is facing unprecedented internal security challenges. In fact, it was on the U.S. insistence that Pakistan agreed to commit itself to a time frame for concluding and signing the revised transit trade agreement by December 31, 2009. Apparently, the Foreign Office was opposed to the idea of setting a specific timeline but the political leadership decided to go along with it.

The commitment to the time frame is clearly reflected in the second paragraph of the MoU, a copy of which was obtained by The News. It states that the two governments “undertake to conclude and sign a complete Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement as early as possible, and no later than December 31, 2009.”

Some of the inputs given by the Foreign Office were incorporated into the final draft of the MoU. For instance, the Americans were also keen that Pakistan should commit itself to certain concepts but the Foreign Office’s view was that such details were unnecessary at this stage and should be discussed at the working-level negotiations.

Both sides will begin negotiations on the agreement here this week with top representatives of the two commerce ministries leading the process, sources told The News. In the one-page MoU, the two governments had committed to begin negotiations no later than May 14, 2009, with a first meeting of the Joint Working Group in Islamabad. “That meeting will establish a timetable for future negotiation sessions,” it said. The News

The Afghan insurgents are very adept at identifying and targeting the supply routes. They did this really well during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. They are doing it on NATO supplies. According to Russian estimates circa 2007 only half the supplies make it to Kabul. The rest are all pilfered and sold in the bazaars of Darra. Since 2008 the attacks have increased exponentially.

The Indian trucks will be easy targets for the insurgents and local supporters. India will have to pay a heavy price for this transportation. The Pakistani military will not allow Indian soldiers on Pakistani soil.

So the exercise in front of Ms. Hillary Clinton is pretty much a paper exercise. It will never happen and can never happen. It does however unmask Mr. Zardari and his ideas.

According to the understanding reached in Washington between the two sides, a joint Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Coordination Committee will be set up by May 14, which in the interim period, pending the conclusion of the transit trade agreement, “will coordinate and resolve all issues relating to cross-border commerce and inland transit trade.”

The undertaking titled ëMemorandum of Understanding Between the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to Improve Trade and Accession Facilitationí signed by the foreign ministers of the two countries on May 6 in Washington was overseen by the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who hosted the Afghan and Pakistani presidents for the first round of the second trilateral talks.

While pointing out that the agreement had been in discussion for 43 years without resolution, Hillary termed it a “historic event” and an “important milestone” that the two neighbouring countries had reached in their efforts to generate foreign investment and stronger economic growth and trade opportunities.

But the MoU, which is said to eventually pave the way for India to use the Wagah-Khyber route for trade with Kabul, was not received with such enthusiasm in Pakistan where neither parliament nor the cabinet was taken into confidence before its signing. Hence, it evoked much criticism and has become controversial. Since India, a major trading partner of Afghanistan is seen as the main beneficiary of it, serious reservations have been expressed about it by key political parties, including the PML-N, the PML-Q and the Jamaat-e-Islami. The MoU issue is also likely to be debated in the upcoming session of the National Assembly, which begins Monday (today). PML-Q leader Marvi Memon has submitted an adjournment motion seeking a discussion on this issue of ìurgent public importanceî.

Concerns about the MoU have also been voiced by retired Pakistani diplomats who have warned about its grave and far-reaching ramifications. Former foreign secretary Riaz Khokhar has cautioned that it is fraught with risks and would undermine Pakistanís security as well as strategic interests.

Although, India has not once been mentioned in the MoU, reference to it is implicit in its opening paragraph which underlines the need to improve the conditions of “international and cross-border trade and transit”, recognizing “the advantages of greater regional and global trade linkages and export-oriented business development.”

At the last weekly news briefing on Thursday, Foreign Office Spokesman Abdul Basit had to face a volley of questions echoing concerns about the major unilateral concession that would be given to India by virtue of this MoU. The spokesman tried to downplay it, saying this was just an MoU and nothing was finalized as negotiations on the agreement were yet to begin. While widely perceived as an “agreement to agree”, his contention was that it was not an agreement itself but a MoU on negotiations. The News