Israel is said to have offered equity participation in its gas fields to India to counter Iran’s proposal to sell more oil to New Delhi and the country’s decision to continue buying crude from Tehran despite western sanctions.
The offer of forming a joint venture to develop the fields and the sale of natural gas figured in the talks between oil minister Jaipal Reddy and Israeli minister for national infrastructure Uzi Landau, who is also in charge of energy and water resources.
Sources said Israel had expressed willingness to offer equity stakes in its gasfields to state-owned ONGC Videsh — the overseas arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation — and in a city gas development project to GAIL (India) Ltd, besides the sale of gas.
Officials said the talks were at a preliminary stage and the modalities had to be worked out.
Israel has recently made a huge gas discovery in the Mediterranean Sea, with the Leviathan fields reserves estimated at 16 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas. The field is expected to start production in 2016. The Tamar field, which has reserves of 8 tcf, is likely to begin production next year.
India, which buys most of its gas from Qatar, Oman and Australia, has been seeking alternative sources after Iran snapped an LNG deal following New Delhi’s vote against its nuclear programme in the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The pipeline from Iran to India through Pakistan has also been shelved because of price and security issues.
Iran continues to be the second biggest supplier of crude to the country and has offered additional oil following US and European sanctions.
The sanctions have hit ONGC Videsh by delaying the signing of a contract to develop the Farzad-B block in Iran, which has an estimated 21.68 tcf in-place reserves, of which 12.8 tcf can be recovered.
ONGC Videsh has invested $36 million in the gasfield, and Tehran has set a deadline for signing the contract.
India will be willing to explore the offer of gas from Israel at a time it seeks to diversify its energy import basket to reduce dependence on a few countries.
A decline in output from RIL’s KG-D6 block has widened the gap between the demand and supply of gas in the country.
While offering an olive branch to the Taliban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday telephoned Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and sought his support to reach out to the militia.
“Karzai underscored Pakistan’s importance in the peace process, and reiterated his request for its assistance in the reconciliation process,” said a statement issued by the Prime Minister House on Tuesday.
Karzai took Premier Gilani into confidence regarding his earlier telephone conversation with US President Barack Obama. The prime minister assured Karzai that Pakistan would whole-heartedly continue supporting an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process.
Following his telephone conversation with Premier Gilani and President Obama, the Afghan leader formally invited the Taliban leadership for direct talks with his government.
“In order to realise the objectives of the peace process, I invite the Taliban leadership to engage in direct talks with the Afghan government,” Karzai said in a statement issued by his office.
The US was quick to welcome Karzai’s offer. “We have been gratified to see President Karzai speaking out publicly in support of Afghan-to-Afghan reconciliation,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters. “Our goal is to work ourselves out of a job… because when we get to the point where it’s Afghans and Afghans talking to each other, then we’ll really have a true reconciliation process,” she said.
In a related development, a group of Afghan officials from Kandahar province has left Afghanistan for Quetta to meet Taliban commanders and discuss peace efforts.
“We have been in contact with mid-level Taliban commanders in Quetta for some time. In the last 10 days, our peace council delegations have gone to Quetta three times in twos and threes,” Kandahar peace council head Ata Mohammad Ahmadi told Reuters.
It is unlikely that any meetings between Afghan officials and Taliban commanders could take place in Quetta without the knowledge of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies.
Pakistan may have stepped up its cooperation with the Afghan government by facilitating what Ahmadi said were meetings in Quetta. Pakistani officials were not immediately available for comment.
U.N. nuclear officials conceded failure on Tuesday after an extraordinary, two-day visit to Iran yielded no progress in clearing up allegations about the country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons technology.
A spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency said a delegation from the U.N. nuclear watchdog was returning home after being blocked by Iran from access to key records and sites. The team arrived in Tehran on Sunday at the government’s invitation to resolve long-standing disputes over whether Iranian scientists had secretly experimented with nuclear warhead designs nearly a decade ago.
But the IAEA officials were barred from visiting a key testing facility known as Parchin, where some of the research was alleged to have occurred, the spokesman said. Moreover, the U.N. officials were unable to reach an agreement with Iran on a basic work plan for addressing the questions about past nuclear experiments.
“Intensive efforts were made to reach agreement on a document facilitating the clarification of unresolved issues in connection with Iran’s nuclear program, particularly those relating to possible military dimensions,” the IAEA said in a statement posted late Tuesday on its Web site. “Unfortunately, agreement was not reached on this document.”
IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano called the visit’s outcome “disappointing.”
“We engaged in a constructive spirit, but no agreement was reached,” he said.
The trip, the second by the IAEA team in three weeks, had sparked hopes for a breakthrough in a controversy that has soured the U.N. agency’s relations with Iran and deepened Western suspicions about Iran’s nuclear intentions. The IAEA has repeatedly confronted Iran over scientific papers and other documents — most provided by Western intelligence agencies — that appear to show Iranian scientists working through problems in the design and testing of nuclear warheads.
Iran dismisses the documents as forgeries and maintains that its nuclear projects are intended only for generating electricity.
Iran has frustrated Western governments recently with conflicting messages, mixing conciliatory messages with threats and defiance. Last week, Iranian officials offered to revive long-dormant negotiations with world powers over its nuclear program, and hours later they threatened to cut oil sales to European countries in retaliation for Western sanctions.
The Pakistani navy took delivery Tuesday of two state-of-the-art, US-made surveillance aircraft nine months after militants destroyed two similar planes, officials said.Pakistan said the P3C aircraft, modified with the latest avionics, are designed to improve surveillance in the North Arabian sea, one of the world s most important shipping routes deeply troubled by Somali piracy.'The two aircraft have been delivered to the Pakistan navy. These aircraft have been provided under the foreign military funding programme,' a spokesman for the US embassy in Islamabad, told AFP.Relations between Pakistan and the United States were severely damaged last year by a covert American raid that killed Osama bin Laden and air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, and the alliance remains tense.The navy said the aircraft would help 'maintain requisite vigil in our vital area of interest in the North Arabian Sea', which it said was 'home to intense maritime activity both legal and illegal and thus warrants continuous guard'.Pakistan is to receive six P3C aircraft from the United States in three batches. The first two, received in 2010, were destroyed during a 17-hour siege of a key naval base in Karachi last May blamed on the Taliban.The attack killed 10 personnel and deeply embarrassed the military, just three weeks after bin Laden was killed in the garrison town of Abbottabad. (AFP)
Talk of war is in the air. In the US, one can hardly pick up a newspaper or magazine, or tune in to a public affairs show without encountering speculation about hostilities with Iran. The conservative right is fairly clambering for conflict, and even parties not normally associated with them – the Washington Post comes to mind – are just a step or two behind in demanding clear “red lines” to trigger the first salvo.
Those to the left of centre are notable for their hand-wringing passivity. They whine about the daunting risks and pallid potential gains of a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, but lack the moral conviction to make any compelling counter-argument.
Most prominent in the latter ranks is the Obama administration itself. It clearly has no taste for war with Iran, and just as clearly fears what the Israelis might do, but cannot say so, for fear of crippling itself politically. And so it assumes a seemingly safe middle ground, posturing, in coded language, that “all options are on the table”, while hoping against hope that increasingly stringent sanctions and the thinly veiled threat of a conventional military strike will induce Iran to change course before Israel acts.
One reads the stories of firm messages supposedly being passed in private to the Israeli government, warning them against precipitate action – most recently, we are told, by General Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What precise messages General Dempsey or others may have delivered we do not know, but it is implausible that anyone in the Netanyahu government, caught up in geo-political hysteria, would heed them. Why should they? What possible credibility can Obama have in making an argument in private that he fears to make in public? With a majority of the US electorate heavily convinced that Iran poses an imminent and mortal threat, and having done as much as anyone to promote this canard, how precisely would the US government sustain a policy of leaving Israel to its own devices after striking a blow ostensibly in its own defence? It could not; and Israel knows it.
Again, no one believes the US will strike Iran first. Observers instead wait to see whether and when Israel will touch off the conflagration.
Such observers are a bit slow on the uptake. In fact, the war between Israel and Iran is already underway, even if the methods employed on both sides are subterranean. No one doubts an Israeli hand behind the recent assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists; Israel itself will not deny it. And only the willfully naïve could doubt that recent terrorist incidents involving Israeli diplomatic personnel in India and Georgia are connected with Iran, particularly after the highly damaging evidence of direct Iranian complicity in similar, subsequent attack preparations in Thailand.
It is easy to see the motivations behind these actions on both sides, which are reminiscent of the war of assassination which took place between Israel and the PLO in various western capitals in the 1970s. It is harder to see their point, however, as nothing remotely productive or decisive can come of them. The question now is not whether there will be war, as we can already see its wasteful effects, but whether it will expand into the conventional realm, and draw in new participants.
It is prudent at the outset of any form of violent conflict to have some idea of one’s objectives. In virtually all wars, the point of resorting to military means is to arrive at a more favourable, or at least more lasting and stable political arrangement. With Israel and Iran already in violent conflict and perhaps soon to expand the scope of the battle to involve the US, it might be worthwhile, at this early stage, to consider what such a new political arrangement might look like.
Any conventional war involving Israel, the US, Iran and perhaps other regional powers would be a limited one. Military efforts to degrade Iranian nuclear capabilities and defence infrastructure will surely not include an attempt at occupying the country, nor at forcibly removing its government. Even the US would not be capable of doing so, even if it were so inclined. Nor is war likely to induce either the Iranian regime or its people to capitulate on their nuclear programme, regardless of its ultimate intent. Instead, armed intervention is far more likely to swing the Iranians more solidly behind their government and its nationalist agenda, even if that agenda were temporarily set back.
Thus, if the point of conflict from the perspective of Israel and the West were to remove the eventual threat of Iranian nuclear arms, and military means on their own will not be sufficient to achieve such an end, what sort of political arrangement might armed conflict help to precipitate?
It seems reasonable to suppose that an Iranian attempt to acquire nuclear weapons capability would have at least three ends, in probable descending order of importance: To have the asymmetric means to counter overwhelming US conventional armed superiority in the Gulf; to achieve a greater degree of regional prestige and hegemony over the Gulf Arab nations; and to counter the Israeli nuclear threat. Thus, a new political arrangement in the region designed to achieve strategic balance without resort to nuclear weapons, and to win broad regional support would need to include a firm political governor on the unfettered employment of unilateral military means by the US; mutual assurances against internal interference and subversion designed to allay Arab fears of Persian dominance; and a comprehensive regional denuclearisation regime – which would perforce include Israel.
None of these might seem feasible or palatable now. But the world will look different after a messy armed conflict in the Gulf, and what might once have seemed unthinkable might well become imperative. Thus, if Israel and the US, the former actively and the latter passively, are willing to contemplate armed conflict with Iran in order to counter its nuclear intentions, they would do well to plan now for the eventual political adjustments which such a programme will necessarily imply, and to consider, while there is still time, whether they can live with them.
Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan director of a US NGO, Human Rights Watch (HRW), was the only Pakistani who appeared as a witness on Balochistan issue during the illegal hearing of US House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs and gave testimony against Pakistan by presenting wrong facts and figures.
Leading politicians from government and opposition parties have condemned in the strongest words the conspiracy of some Pakistanis to take the indigenous issue of Balochistan to the American government and US Congress Committee and have demanded strict legal actions against such elements. While the US is all out to balkanise Pakistan initially by supporting independence of Balochistan and by siding with the angry Baloch separatist elements, American planted NGOs and some so-called liberal elements are also all out to implement US agenda to destabilise Pakistan by disintegrating and isolating its social ranks.
All efforts of The News to reach Ali Dayan for his latest versions were failed. Ali Dayan was approached on his Pakistan cell number but it was switched off. There was information that Dayan is still in USA but he was also inaccessible on his US office number 00- 1-(212) 290-4700. Dayan didn’t take the call on his international cell number 00-44-798-333-5221.
Ali Dayan Hasan who recently attacked Pakistan’s superior judiciary for considering a case of alleged treason has started a full campaign to fuel more and more fire on the issue of Balochistan by holding security institutions as solely responsible for the whole crisis. Dayan is narrating a one-sided story before the whole world from the platform of HRW without describing the background of the issue. Dayan in his reports never described as to what the Baloch Sardars, who are now blowing fire against Pakistan’s institutions, have done for their people during their tenures as chief ministers and governors of the province. Cold blooded killings of the Balochs is undoubtedly a big national issue and there is great need of an immediate political solution of the whole situation but Dayan instead of trying to solve the problem is continuously fueling the crisis. Dayan’s reports have little mention of hundreds of killing of settlers in Balochistan whereas he used to glorify killings of Baloch people with the twist that all these were killed by security agencies. Dayan, in his reports never portrays the decades long infighting and quarrels between different Baloch tribes and Baloch Sardars.
While reports of killings of Baloch leaders, Hazara community members and settlers emanate from Balochistan on almost daily basis now, Dayan or his American HRW, interestingly never criticized the PPP’s government in the centre which has completely failed to initiate a political process to bring an end to the endangering crisis. PPP government’s all steps were with regard to pacifying Balochsitan and its development proved mere eyewash. Dayan, who is considered very close to the PPP government has never demanded PPP government to bring political solution for different Baloch disputes and has merely focused on American agenda of army bashing and to further disintegrate Pakistan’s society. Dayan never protested before the Pakistani parliament to press it to bring a political solution to Baloch crisis. Dayan, who claims to be one of the front-runner in lawyers’ movement for the restoration of judiciary never moved a Pakistani court to intervene in Baloch crisis to get some judgment against those who, according to Dayan, are responsible for violation of human rights in Balochistan.
A leading English newspaper questioned Dayan before the US Congress committee hearing that if committee asked him about breaking up of Pakistan and independence of Balochistan, what would be his reaction. They asked whether he would keep quiet. He said. “I have been told that I would only be providing a historical context-based presentation on Balochistan issues in Pakistan. I will therefore limit my comments to my area of expertise – Pakistan.”
After Dayan’s witness before the US Congress committee, Republican senator Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) introduced a House Concurrent Resolution that the Baloch nation has a historic right to self-determination and thus the US should support Balochistan independence.
Wasim Sajjad, member of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security and a senior leader of ruling alliance party PML-Q while talking to The News said that it is the Interior Ministry which is solely responsible for immediately taking action against those NGOs or persons who are accepting dollars from the US and are pursuing their agenda on the lands of Pakistan and destabilizing Balochistan. Wasim showed his astonishment as to how some people who are Pakistani, living in Pakistan have taken the indigenous issue of Balochistan to US Congress Committee. He said that his committee could consider the issue and can summon such persons but it is the duty of the sitting government and especially the Interior Ministry to swiftly act against such elements who are destabilising Pakistan by presenting wrong picture of the Balochistan issue and have directly attacked the sovereignty of the country by seeking US intervention in Balochistan’s problems.
Senior PML-N leader Khawaja Asif said that first of all issue of Balochistan will have to be analysed in its historical perspective by keeping in view the betrayal of state of its promises during Ayub Khan’s era, the military operations during Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Musharraf’s regimes. “Undoubtedly, only army or the agencies currently operating in the province couldn’t be held solely responsible for the whole crisis and major share of responsibility lies with the politicians, especially those who are currently in power in Islamabad and Quetta, for their failure to bring a political solution during all these years,” Khawaja said. These Islamabad and Quetta rulers have willfully abandoned their role for the agencies and are squarely responsible for any wrong step or action taken by the agencies in Balochistan for the reason that primarily maintaining law and order and development in the deprived province is basic duty of these politically elected rulers. He said that he has no hope from the present rulers to bring about any change in the situation of the Balochistan and it is for all other political parties, especially PML-N, to work in the province to create harmony and try to persuade the Baloch people that their problems are genuine and people of all other provinces are with them to sort out their issues. Asif said that issue of Balochistan is a home grown problem and its solution could only be traced by living with in Pakistan and those who are vying for American intervention on the issue of Balochistan want to completely destabilise the country and will further deteriorate the whole situation. He said Balochistan is our issue and we will have to resolve it and those persuading the Americans to intervene are in fact enemies of Pakistan.
Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar, Federal Defence Minister while talking to The News said that the issue of Balochistan could only be resolved in Pakistan by Pakistanis. He said that seeking foreign intervention or taking the issue to the US government and US Congress is a step against the state. Mukhtar said that it is time for the nation to become united for resolution of the Baloch issue and the Parliamentary Committee on National Security should suggest as to how some action could be taken against those Pakistanis involved in breaching Pakistan’s sovereignty by taking issue of Balochistan to US.
Pyongyang’s top nuclear envoy arrived in Beijing on Tuesday ahead of the first nuclear talks with the United States since the death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il.
First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, who did not speak at the Beijing airport, is due to meet U.S. envoy Glyn Davies in Beijing on Thursday.
It will be the third round of such talks since July but the first since Kim’s death in December. The talks are aimed at restarting six-nation aid-for-disarmament negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear program.
The talks are being watched for signals about how North Korea’s young new leader Kim Jong Un will handle the long-running nuclear standoff.
North Korea walked away from the talks in 2009.
A small group of secessionists are being given a hype, a wide coverage, by out pseudo intellectuals and vested interest media, jeopardizing the national security of Pakistan.
The roots of the system of Sardari in Balluchistan needs a closer scrutiny. The petty sardars were technically abolished by the Presidential Ordinance of 1976,which was focused on Abolition of the ‘Sardari system in Balluchistan’.
Under Naseer Khan Barrohi, the Nizamate of Kalat was divided in 4 political entities. This Nizamate was the creation of Nadir Shah, to teach a lesson to the Kalhora for not paying the tribute in 1740 AD.
Naseer khan was a successful administrator and a brave warrior.
His administrative areas were;
1) Sarawan, the plateau from Nushki till Sibi, inclusive of present Mari & Bugti region.
2) Jhalawan, the lowlands from Surab to the boundaries of Las Bela.
3) Makuran under the Ghicki Chief, but subservient to the Khan.
4) Kaachi, extending till Harrand-Dajjal,(later, DG Khan district). This region was awarded in lieu of Naseer Khan’s help to Abdali’s in the third Battle of Panipat against the Mahratta intruders. The point to appreciate and understand here is the system of Naseer Khan.
Regarding his dealings with tribal chiefs :
” The powers of the Sardars or feudal lords were limited in the Barrohi tenure of rule, till the British jumped in. These Sardars held a consultative position in the matters of importance and in deciding tribal cases. They were as a sort of Conciliatory commission. Their Duty was that of an Arbitrator of peace between the contending parties. In case they failed, the matter was referred to the Khan-the Supreme Power-who in return forwarded it to the Qazi-ul-Quzzat (chief judge) for the final decision. Such was the position of the Sardars in the Criminal cases, while civil cases were directly dealt by the Qazi. The Khan was the Court of Appeal in all matters concerning the tribes of the conquered areas. The Sardars (tribal chiefs) were given jagirs by the Khan, and consequently they supplied the Khan with men and material in emergencies. Failing to produce specified quota of men, their jagirs were confiscated. Regarding internal affairs, the Khan acted quite independently in making laws and various other changes in the administrative spheres. While in his dealings with external matters, the feudal lords acted as a sort of Advisory Council. It was Naseer Khan, who had appointed tribal chiefs through General Elections of the tribe, by the headmen. Seniority in age and personal distinction were the deciding factors in the nomination of the tribal chief.( page 85,History of Baluch race, by Muhammad Sardar Baluch.1958).
When the British came and started setting up their new class orders, they met with problems in the Nazimate regions/ Sir Robert Sandeman was of the view owing to the democratic setup found amongst the tribes, the Head-men (Tumandars) if unsupported could not enforce Authority over the unruly spirits and in order to preserve what influence they possessed, they were compelled to follow the path where the unruly spirits lead (unruly being those who opposed the British).But the balance of power was turned, when the Tumandars were given the means to entertain armed servants of their own, and when supported by suitable allowances and the prestige of connection with ”OUR’ power. They then can exert themselves successfully, to keep their tribes in order.(p-304,Sir Robert Sandeman by T.H.Thornton.1895).
Though as we see the British created a new class, to quote just two examples Mihrullah Khan Marri and Shahbaz Khan Bugti were made Nawabs in January 1890,by the British Government of India.
But what most miss; the conditions attached with all these titles and grants .
They were all subject to 7 terms which were as under:
1) To be continued to a single ‘Designate’ heir.
2) And Conditionally on the Government pleasure.
3) Heir to be chosen by the Government.
4) Information services to be provided during the term in office.
5) Subject to good behavior while in service to the Government.
6) For service and position.
7) Government services to be rendered on call, with the retainers.
(PRAP(R) feb 1896).
Keeping all these strict rules which lasted till 1947,it should have been the moral duty of those ICS and later CSP cadre lot to enforce them . These old bureaucrats, in league with these elements never really enforced the writ of the land. Later the capital moved to Islamabad but more pressing needs kept the matters under the carpet. Today, we find ourselves at an impasse.
It should be borne in mind that creation of Balluchistan entity ,was a British geographic solution, in order to implement their forward policies, The Barrohi is Not a Balluch, by any yardstick, neither ethnically nor linguistically do they interrelate to each other.
As to the Etymological meaning of the word, Balluchi, it means:
Bal signifies : The Land tract’.
Lu signifies: The People.
Chi signifies: Of the.
The ‘Lu’ and Chi are Turkish terms .Bal-Lu-Chi means, ”Of the people of Bal”.
The original tract of Bal-yus’ was the present Qandhar region but in Bal-yus
entity it compromised Qandhar till Farrah and down to Qilla e Bust.
(On Balyus,kindly read,page- 1018note,Tabakat e Nasiri,of Maulana
Minhaj Ud din Abu Umar Usman translation by H.G Raverty,vol ii,1881).
With the passage of time, the Balluch identity is lost to those who were imposed on them to serve the interests of the British. Today, these very imposters forms a pressure group that threatens the very fabric of our nation hood!
This is a Pakpotpourri Exclusive
Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan announced Today that he will be ending his 66-day hunger strike after Israel agreed to release him.
The Islamic Jihad operative, who has been fighting a provision that allows Israel to hold detainees for months or even years without trial or formal charges, reached an agreement with the state prosecution less than an hour before his case was discussed at the Supreme Court.
According to a Justice Ministry statement, the state will not request to extend Adnan's administrative detention, which is due to end on April 17.
Adnan, who is hospitalized in Ziv Hospital in Safed, announced that he will be ending his hunger strike. Since an agreement was reached, there will not be a hearing at the Supreme Court.
Adnan continued his hunger strike longer than any Palestinian detainee before him. His doctors warned this week that the 33-year-old might die soon.
The hunger strike has transformed Adnan into a Palestinian hero, with thousands protesting in support of the once obscure bearded baker. The Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad had vowed revenge if Adnan died, possibly by firing rockets into Israel from Gaza. The group has killed dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks. Adnan was once a spokesman for the group. It's unclear if he ever participated in any attacks.
Adnan is serving four months in administrative detention. Israeli military judges can imprison defendants for up to six months at a time, with the possibility of renewing the detention order repeatedly. Defendants and their lawyers are not shown the alleged evidence against them.
An Israeli military judge rejected an appeal by Adnan last week, saying he reviewed the evidence and found the sentence to be fair.
On Saturday, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the bloc was following Adnan's case with "great concern."
"Detainees have the right to be informed about the charges underlying any detention and be subject to a fair trial," Ashton said in a statement.
Israeli military officials generally use administrative detention to hold Palestinians who they believe are an imminent risk to the country's security. They say if the evidence against the accused was made public, it would expose Israeli intelligence-gathering networks in the Palestinian Territories. They say the process is under full judicial review by Israel's military and the Supreme Court.
Annan began his hunger strike on Dec. 18, a day after he was seized from his home in the northern West Bank town of Arabeh.
He told his lawyers that he was beaten and humiliated during arrest and interrogation.
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Source: Haaretz
Western countries are stirring up a civil war in Syria with their wholehearted support for the opposition, a top Chinese newspaper said on Monday, slamming calls for the country’s leader to hand over power as an incitement to further violence.
As many as 27 people have been killed across the country on Sunday, including a doctor and a judge, Al Arabiya reported citing Syrian activists.
Police and militia patrols fanned out in the Syrian capital’s Mezze district on Sunday to prevent more protests like those that have threatened President Bashar al-Assad’s grip on Damascus, opposition activists said.
On the international front, China said it believed a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis was still possible but Britain’s foreign minister said he feared the Middle Eastern country would slide into civil war.
China and Russia angered Western and Arab states this month by blocking a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that backed an Arab plan urging Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to quit amid his government’s violent crackdown on opposition protests.
Stung by the criticism, China has since sent envoys to the region to seek a diplomatic solution, including Vice Foreign Minister Zhai Jun, who met Assad in Damascus on Saturday and backed his plans for a referendum and multi-party elections.
Large-scale civil war
Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily, in a front page commentary in its overseas edition, said China must stick to its line in opposing any attempt to force regime change or intervene in Syria.
“If Western countries continue to fully support Syria’s opposition, then in the end a large-scale civil war will erupt and there will be no way to thus avoid the possibility of foreign armed intervention,” Qu Xing, who the paper identified as a foreign affairs expert, wrote in the piece, according to Reuters.
If the Security Council had passed the resolution backing the Arab League for Assad to step down, that would only have led to more violence, Qu wrote.
“Assad would have had his back up against the wall with all means of retreat cut off, and the opposition would have been encouraged to press steadily forward. Clashes would have been even worse than they are now.”
Over the weekend, thousands of Syrians demonstrated in the heart of the capital in one of the biggest anti-government rallies there since a nationwide uprising started nearly a year ago.
The latest unrest took place as Chinese envoy Zhai met Assad and appealed to all sides to end the violence. Zhai also met opposition members.
Zhai also expressed Beijing’s support for Assad’s plan to hold a referendum and multi-party elections within four months — a move the West and some in Syria’s fragmented opposition movement have dismissed as a sham.
Chinese state media has published numerous commentaries in recent days on Syria, warning against armed intervention, forced regime change or sanctions, in a reflection of government thinking on the issue.
China and Russia have been Assad’s most important international defenders during the crackdown which has killed several thousand people and divided world powers. The United Nations, the United States, Europe, Turkey and Arab powers want Assad to step down and have condemned the repression.
Police fanning across Damascus
Meanwhile, police and militia patrols fanned out in the Syrian capital’s Mezze district on Sunday to prevent more protests, opposition activists said.
Samer al-Khatib, a young protester killed when security forces fired on Saturday’s rally, was buried in Mezze on Sunday amid a heavy security presence to prevent the funeral from turning into an anti-Assad demonstration, opposition activists contacted by Reuters from Amman said.
Fifteen pick-up trucks carrying security police and armed pro-Assad militiamen, known as ‘shabbiha’, surrounded the funeral as Khatib was buried quietly, they said.
Police cars and militia jeeps patrolled Mezze while secret police stopped men at random to check identification cards, they said. “Walking in Mezze now carries the risk of arrest. The area is quiet, even popular food shops in Sheikh Saad are empty,” activist Moaz al-Shami said, referring to a main street.
The Damascus protest indicated the movement against Assad, who has ruled Syria for 11 years after succeeding his father Hafez on his death, has not been cowed by repression and embraces a wide section of Syrian society.
Assad, who belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, in a majority Sunni country, says he is fighting foreign-backed terrorists.
The United States, Europe, Turkey and Gulf-led Arab states have all demanded Assad quit power.
Egypt has recalled its ambassador to Syria, the state-run Middle East News Agency reported on Sunday, citing Foreign Minister Mohammed Amr. It has joined the Gulf Arab countries in seeking to isolate the Assad government. The Gulf Cooperation Councils six members announced on Feb. 7 that they were expelling Syrian ambassadors from their capitals and withdrawing their envoys.
Libya-style intervention
The West has ruled out any Libya-style military intervention but the Arab League, led by Saudi Arabia, has indicated some of its member states were prepared to arm the opposition.
British Foreign Minister William Hague reiterated that view on Sunday, telling the BBC: “We cannot intervene in the way we did in Libya … we will do many other things.”
“I am worried that Syria is going to slide into a civil war and that our powers to do something about it are very constrained because, as everyone has seen, we have not been able to pass a resolution at the U.N. Security Council because of Russian and Chinese opposition.”
In Washington the top U.S. military officer, General Martin Dempsey, said intervening in Syria would be “very difficult” because it was not another Libya.
“It would be a big mistake to think of this as another Libya,” Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.
Syria’s army is “very capable,” with a sophisticated, integrated air defense system and chemical and biological weapons, Dempsey said.
He also thought it was premature to arm the opposition movement in Syria, because “I would challenge anyone to clearly identify for me the opposition movement in Syria at this point.”
Sanctions ruining the country
Leading Syrian businessman Faisal al-Qudsi said the government was slowly disintegrating and sanctions were ruining the economy.
He told the BBC in London military action could only last six months but Assad’s government would fight to the end.
“The army is getting tired and will go nowhere,” he said. “They will have to sit and talk or at least they have to stop killing. And the minute they stop killing, more millions of people will be on the streets. So they are in a Catch-22.”
Qudsi, who was involved in Syria’s economic liberalization, told the BBC the apparatus of government was almost non-existent in trouble spots like Homs, Idlib and Deraa.
Government forces bombarded Homs on Sunday. The western city, strategically sited on the road between Damascus and commercial hub Aleppo, has been under siege for more than two weeks and a humanitarian crisis is unfolding as food and medical supplies are running short.
Rockets, artillery and sniper fire have killed several hundred people, according to activists, but security forces have held back from a full assault on opposition-held districts. Residents fear a bloodbath should that take place.
The Balochistan resolution presented in the US Congress on Friday is not a piece of legislation and will have no legal force even if it is adopted, although this seems unlikely.
As Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, the lawmaker behind the effort, stated in his press release, it’s a concurrent resolution submitted in the US House of Representatives.
According to a Congressional bills glossary, published by the US Government Printing Office, a concurrent resolution is a legislative proposal that “requires the approval of both the House and the Senate in the same language but does not require the signature of the President and does not have the force of law”.
Concurrent resolutions generally are used to express the sentiments of both the houses, such as conveying congratulations to another country on the anniversary of its independence.
A concurrent resolution is also used for housekeeping functions such as authorising the printing of congressional documents.
A concurrent resolution, however, can be used to express the sense, or opinion, of Congress on matters of foreign and domestic policy but to do so it requires the approval of both houses. The resolution on Balochistan is unlikely to have this approval because so far it has only been moved in the House.
Even in the House, it only has one mover, Mr Rohrabacher, and two co-signers. So far no other lawmaker has backed this resolution.
Yet, as Ambassador Sherry Rehman pointed out, it can do much harm to already strained relations between the United States and Pakistan.
“This kind of resolution, even though it’s moved by one congressman and supported by two others, strains the people-to-people relationship between the two nations,” she told Dawn.
The ambassador noted that the US administration had clearly distanced itself from the move, and no US newspaper or TV channel had taken it up.
Ambassador Rehman, who had a series of meetings with senior State Department officials soon after the resolution was moved, said the US administration had assured her that “it is certainly not government policy to challenge Pakistan’s territorial integrity”.
US officials pointed out that it was “one among thousands of resolutions of this nature moved in the US Congress, and is likely not to gather support on the Hill”.
“Yet, it reduces space for moderate discourse which is so essential to policymaking. It also becomes very different to change the narrative when such episodes recur in quick succession,” Amb Rehman said.
An official US Statement also made a similar point, saying that “the US policy has nothing to do with the resolution tabled in the US House of Representatives on Balochistan province”.
The statement noted that the US respected Pakistan’s sovereignty and considered Balochistan “an internal matter of the country”.
The United States, however, supported human rights across the world, the statement added.
On Friday, US state department’s spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters that the US has no intentions to interfere in internal affairs of Pakistan.
In a separate statement, the Pakistan Embassy took “serious notice” of the resolution, saying: “We reject this ill-informed move and the Congressman’s misplaced concern on Balochistan, which is a part of the Pakistani Federation.”
The embassy pointed out that Balochistan had a directly elected provincial assembly and had due representation in the National Assembly and the Senate of Pakistan. “The resolution seeks to cast doubt on the territorial integrity of a member of the United Nations and a friend of the United States, and is totally unacceptable,” the embassy said.
The embassy also said that Amb Rehman has met more than a dozen senior US legislators on this issue who also assured her that they too considered Balochistan Pakistan’s internal matter and were not going to endorse Congressman Rohrabacher’s move.
Meanwhile, Christine Fair, one of the witnesses who appeared before Mr Rohrabacher’s panel last week to speak about human rights situation in Balochistan, told a journalist, Eddie Walsh, that she believed the hearing was a “political stunt”.
Ms Fair told Mr Walsh that her “political stunt” comment was prompted by a call from a staff member of Mr Rohrabacher’s panel. Ms Fair had contacted him to solicit guidance for her upcoming testimony. In the course of their conversation, the staffer explained “we want to stick it to the Pakistanis”.
“Based upon that brief phone conversation, I concluded that it wasn’t about human rights. Rather, it seemed that the people behind this hearing were pandering to diaspora politics just to tick off the Pakistanis at a time when the United States is trying to repair its tattered relationship with Pakistan”.
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