Neighbourhood Watch

In this weekly column, we look at events in and around our neighbourhood over the past week. Or two.

“Is Pakistan Isolated?”

That somewhat rhetorical question was the subject of a seminar in Islamabad organised on 28 June by Pakistan’s Institute for Policy Reforms, an ostensibly independent think tank. It’s rhetorical because bar the People’s Republic of China (Islamabad’s ‘Best Friend Forever’)and, to an extent, Saudi Arabia salivating over the dream of acquiring nuclear weapons capability from Pakistan, Islamabad does not have any friends.

‘Pakistan has become isolated and needs to change its foreign policy’, read the venerable Dawn newspaper’s headline the next day. It was quoting the view expressed at the seminar, by senior journalist Zahid Hussein who lamented that “Pakistan has been left far behind, even by Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.”

This statement promptly led a devoted Dawn reader, who goes by the moniker ‘AHA’, to angrily declare: “He is wrong! We are the most friendly and powerful nation and if we just shout once, at least 100 countries line up to support us.”

Tariq Fatemi, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister of Foreign Affairs, who also spoke at the seminar, would probably agree.

It was “because of our intensive diplomacy at the international level, not only China but 11 other NSG member states supported Pakistan’s stance,” and, thus, denied India membership to the Nuclear Supplies Group (NSG) in Seoul on 24 June, he crowed.

While asserting that Pakistan wanted to have cordial relations with all countries he, however, warned that “Pakistan must not be held responsible for the failure of other countries.”

Perhaps he was referring to the failure of the world, particularly neighbours like Afghanistan and India, to check Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.

Meanwhile, the country’s top military spokesman Lt-General Asim Bajwa, Director General of Inter Services Public Relations put India back as ‘Enemy Number One’, while lamenting that the international community was being unfair to Pakistan by accusing it of not doing enough in the war against terrorism.

In an interview with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, he argued that “Pakistan fought the war for the entire world in that region, but the world left her alone to face them.”

He also announced that since the fight against the militants in the North Waziristan and the Khyber-Pakthunwala area was almost over, India had (once again) become the biggest threat to Pakistan.

Pakistan’s defence mechanism was ‘India-specific’ because India ‘posed the greatest threat to Pakistan’s security,’ Deutsche Welle quoted him as saying.

(In early 2013, facing embarrassing questions over harbouring Osama Bin Laden on Pakistani territory and the growing fundamentalism and terror attacks within Pakistan, the military had declared terrorism as its number one enemy- reluctantly usurping India from that hallowed designation.)

As for Afghanistan, Bajwa insisted that it is “…a brotherly country of Pakistan. Currently, the two countries have some issues over the exchange of fire at Torkham, on the issue of installation of gates on the border but there is dialogue happening”.

Describing the U.S. drone strike which took out Afghan Taliban head Mullah Akhtar Mansour on Pakistani soil on 21 May as ‘regrettable’, he said: “[Mansour] entered into Pakistan from another state and then he was traced and attacked. He was a part of the (Afghan) reconciliation process and was required to play his role for peace”.

More importantly, “Pakistan was not informed despite being an ally. This is the issue Pakistan has been protesting.” Bajwa would do well to ponder why the U.S. had not informed Pakistan about the plan to take out Osama Bin Laden in 2011 either.

In Afghanistan, almost as if to back up Bajwa’s claim about the peace process being hit, the Taliban claimed credit for an attack on a bus taking trainee police officers to Kabul on 30 June, killing at least 27 of them and seriously injuring over 40.

A day earlier, Kabul- which has long accused Pakistan of providing sanctuary to the Taliban and others who conduct terrorist operations inside Afghanistan- went a step further by accusing Pakistan of also training and funding cadres of the Daesh, or Islamic State (which is opposed to the Taliban).

Speaking to the media in Jalalabad, National Security Adviser Hanif Atmar said Afghan security forces had recently arrested three Daesh fighters led by a Tajik. “We know where they received their training, who gave them arms, who gave them money, and who supported them,” Atmar said. The majority of Daesh fighters in Afghanistan were of Pakistani origin and carried Pakistani identity documents, he added.

However, he said, the outfit which earlier had thousands of cadres in Afghanistan was now down to a few hundred. The rest had either been killed or fled, following the crackdown by the Afghan forces.

As the recent spike in infiltration attempts and gun battles with Indian security forces indicate, some of them might have turned to what they perceive as a softer target: Kashmir.

If all is not well on our Western front, however, there is a reason for hope and cheer in the North and the East.

(I am deliberately excluding China’s shenanigans at Seoul over India’s NSG bid, and the subsequent slanging match between the two nations, cheered on by the United States because enough has been said on that subject already).

Ties with Nepal

Ties with our other Northern neighbour- which had chilled considerably after the row over Nepal’s new constitution and India’s subsequent unofficial blockade of the landlocked Himalayan nation earlier this year- seem to be thawing a bit.

The first-ever meeting of Eminent Persons Group (EPG) on Nepal-India Relations will be held in Kathmandu between 4-5 July.

The EPG, which comprises of four representatives from each side, is tasked with formulating ways and means to improve ties between the two nations in the rapidly changing international environment.

Nepal’s EPG Coordinator, Bhekh Bahadur Thapa, told The Himalayan Times that “the first meeting will be an exploratory one. We will explore and finalise the topics to be reviewed by EPG, decide its working procedures and set time-frame for its report.”

“The EPG has been given two years to come up with a comprehensive report on anything that needs to be updated, adjusted or amended in all exiting bilateral treaties, agreements, understandings, including the Peace and Friendship Treaty of the 1950s. It’s said that its tenure would be counted from its first meeting next week,” said The Himalayan Times.

In the East

Despite growing murmurs over the transit fee, the India-Bangladesh waterways transit was inaugurated on 17 June. A ship carrying a thousand tonnes of iron rods was received at Ashuganj Port in Bangladesh, for transportation to Tripura via the nation’s inland waterways.

Part of the Indo-Bangladesh Protocol on Inland Water Transit and Trade, signed by Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Sheik Hasina Wajed last year, the event marked the “first official transit to India’s North East via Bangladesh,” said India’s High Commissioner to Dhaka, Harsh Vardhan Shringla.

“India will be investing in creating the infrastructure (Port, Road and Rail) in Ashuganj and Akhaura to facilitate the smooth movement of goods,” and these projects would also create jobs in Bangladesh, he was quoted as saying.

Before this agreement, it took trucks from Kolkata three or more weeks to travel around 1,600km to reach Agartala. The route through Bangladesh cuts this down to about 700 km or less, and would take about a week to 10 days.

With Tripura seeking food, fuel and essential supplies urgently after landslides caused by heavy rains blocked the land route via Assam, one can expect movement through this corridor in Bangladesh to be stepped up rapidly. One can also expect demands for a hike in the transit fees, with the opposition claiming Dhaka had sold out to Indian interests.

India is also rebuilding bridges with its other Eastern neighbour, Myanmar. 73 of them, to be precise, along the 1400 km road which begins from Moreh in Manipur and crosses Myanmar, to connect with Mae Sot in Thailand. A joint team of officials from Myanmar and India have already started the survey of these bridges, some of World War II vintage quality and is expected to submit its report early in July. “India will foot the bill for maintenance costs for the bridges, most of which are located on the Myanmar side of the two countries’ shared border,” The Myanmar Times quoted U Shwe Lay, a senior official in Myanmar’s Ministry of Construction, as saying on 23 June.

So as Pakistan frets over increasing isolation, plots its next terrorist strike and gloats over the denial of NSG membership to India, New Delhi seems content with building bridges and relationships with its neighbours in the North and the East. And in the South too, but more on that next week.