http://www.pakistanpressreleases.com/general/ppi-original-text-ppi-ot-35th-meeting-of-tri-partite-commission-held/
PPI Original Text (PPI-OT) – 35th meeting of Tri Partite Commission held
Rawalpindi, May 13, 2012 (PPI-OT): 35th meeting of Tri Partite Commission was held between military authorities of Pakistan, Afghanistan and ISAF, today. The Commission provides a forum to raise and process contentious issues and facilitate settlement.
Talks focused on border control measures, and mechanisms put in place to avoid untoward incidents on both sides of Pak-Afghan Border.
Pakistan Army contingent was led by COAS, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. General John Allen, Commander ISAF and General Sher Muhammad Karimi, Chief of General Staff Afghan National Army headed respective delegations.
For more information, contact:
Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR)
Hilal Road, Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Tel: +9251 927 1605
Fax: +9251 927 1601
Email: [email protected]
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-n...-fail-to-untie-key-knots-at-tripartite-forum/
Generals fail to untie key knots at tripartite forum
By: Sikander Shaheen | May 13, 2012
RAWALPINDI –Pakistan and Western military alliance commanders Saturday failed to make headway on crucial contentious issues, particularly the resumption of Nato supplies.
The leadership of International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) headed by General John Allen and accompanied by its Afghan military counterparts arrived in Pakistan reportedly with a ‘grim’ message for the country – open Nato supplies or face Pentagon-sponsored ‘other’ set of options.
A brief statement from Pakistan’s military sounded to imply that the Isaf-led delegation’s arrival did not bear any relevance with the crucial contemporary developments vis--vis Pak-US relations and the delegation was visiting Pakistan in connection with Tripartite Commission meeting.
“Preliminary bilateral meetings were held with Pakistan Army delegation, led by Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Talks focused on operations in border areas and coordination mechanisms to avoid untoward incidents,” it said.
But the subjects mentioned in the military statement were least discussed in the Kayani-Allen one-on-one meeting as well as the deliberations among other senior military officials.
They actually tried to iron out the fault lines on major issues but reportedly the effort ended in frustration with western-side repeating the US stance on not inviting Pakistan in Nato summit in Chicago, refusal to apologise over Salala incident, continuance of drone attacks and threats of toughened aid conditions for Pakistan.
Earlier on Wednesday, in response to this scribe’s query following a prior telephonic conversation, the Isaf Military Spokesperson Brigadier General Carsten Jacobson had declined to provide details of these meetings. He just wrote in a text message: “This is highly classified. No comments please.”
Sources in Nato’s mission in Afghanistan confirmed this newspaper’s prior information that General John Allen was accompanied by Isaf Air Operations Head in Afghanistan Major General Tod Wolters, Intelligence Head Isaf Brig Gen Robert Ashley and Isaf Deputy Commander Adrian Bradshaw.
Besides General Kayani, Rawalpindi Corps Commander Lt-Gen Khalid Nawaz Khan, Peshawar Corps Commander Lt-Gen Khalid Rabbani and DGMO Maj-Gen Ishfaq Nadeem represented Pakistan while Afghanistan was represented by National Directorate of Security (NDS) Director Rehmatullah Nabeel, Deputy Director Yasin Zia and Afghan National Army (ANA) Chief Sher Muhammad, it is learnt.
The Isaf-led delegation was purportedly ‘unflagging’ in conveying to its counterparts at GHQ that future of ‘extensive’ Pak-US strategic prospects hinged on Pakistan’s decision on Nato supplies. The ‘warning shot’ was said to have been categorically fired that Nato command was in favour of not inviting Pakistan to the upcoming Chicago moot unless its supplies were restored. Pakistan Army’s demand of an unconditional apology from the US over Salala incident and its insistence to stop drone strikes in the north-western tribal areas were too not ‘well reciprocated’.
The strategic relationship between the two allies has been on a soaring end since last year’s Nov 26 Salala attack. While Washington had earlier purportedly agreed, after extensive rounds of deliberations with Islamabad, to apologise over the killings of 24 Pakistani soldiers, the occurrence of certain developments in Afghanistan did not go the US way and saw the country having tendered an apology over the alleged highhandedness of its soldiers. This, in implied terms, contemplates that another apology from Washington has presently gone out of the cards. The US Congress has proposed drastic slash in aid to Pakistan linking the reversal of this proposal with the restoration of Nato supplies.
Pakistan’s military and government have lately struggled for finding a way out of this stalemate. While the military establishment got the anti-American hype risen so high that it cannot simply backtrack now and that too without receiving the major assurances it has long sought. The political divide and domestic opposition to supplies restoration have narrowed down the options for military and government.
http://dawn.com/2012/05/14/lightning-strikes-security-installation/
Lightning strikes security installation
From the Newspaper | Mohammad Asghar | 14th May, 2012
RAWALPINDI, May 13: A substantial part of a section of a sensitive government installation in Kahuta was heavily damaged when its building was struck by lightning on Saturday night, Dawn learnt on Sunday through a security source.
The source said that during a thunderstorm at around 10.30pm on Saturday, the lightning struck the technical department of the installation, about 60km from Islamabad, and triggered a blaze.
Fire-fighters and senior officers reached the place soon after the flames engulfed the building. It took the department’s fire-fighters two hours to bring the fire under control. By that time, the source said, over 65 per cent of the building had been gutted. He added that police and fire services of the civil administration were not involved in the operation. There was no casualty.
The report of the incident has been sent to relevant authorities, the source said.
No official word was available on the incident.
The installation, a multi-programme research institute of the government, is managed and operated under close scrutiny of the armed forces.
http://dawn.com/2012/05/14/lightning-strikes-security-installation/
U.S. and Pakistan Say Deal to Open NATO Supply Lines Is Imminent
By SALMAN MASOOD and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: May 15, 2012
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — American and Pakistani officials said Tuesday that a deal appeared imminent to reopen Afghan supply lines through Pakistan, after NATO extended an invitation for Pakistan to attend the summit meeting in Chicago this weekend.
Tankers used to transport NATO fuel supplies to Afghanistan were parked near the port in Karachi, Pakistan, on Tuesday.
Relations with the United States have remained deeply strained after an American airstrike on the Pakistani side of the border killed 24 soldiers in November, immediately leading Pakistan to close the supply routes through which NATO shipped about 40 percent of its nonlethal supplies. Pakistani lawmakers have demanded an unconditional apology for the strike and an end to American drone attacks on Pakistani soil, neither of which has happened.
Still, in recent weeks, Pakistani officials have begun publicly backpedaling on their demands and signaling that some deal on the supply lines could be reached, though no timetable on such a discussion was announced.
But officials in Washington, Brussels and Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, said Tuesday that an agreement appeared at hand. The Pakistani cabinet’s defense committee on Tuesday night authorized Pakistani negotiators to strike a deal, although details still needed to be resolved. Pakistan’s top military commanders are to meet with the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on Wednesday, leading to speculation that a decision could be announced then.
“The next 24 to 48 hours are crucial,” one NATO official said. A senior American official added that the two sides were still “far apart” on what NATO would agree to pay Pakistan to use its supply routes. Pakistan also wants an indemnity waiver in case American cargo is damaged, the official said.
Signals that a deal was in the works began when President Asif Ali Zardari’s spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, said on Tuesday that NATO had invited Mr. Zardari to the summit meeting and that he would consider attending “in the light of the Parliament’s guidelines and government’s advice.” But one senior government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Mr. Zardari had already decided to accept. “Mr. Zardari is keen to attend the Chicago summit and will travel to the United States,” the official said.
American and NATO officials have considered it critical that Pakistan be represented at the conference, which is centered on Afghanistan’s future after the end of the NATO military mission there in 2014. Pakistan holds many of the cards when Afghanistan’s stability is involved, not least because many of the Taliban’s senior insurgent leaders are based on Pakistani soil.
“This meeting will underline the strong commitment of the international community to the people of Afghanistan and to its future,” Oana Lungescu, a spokeswoman for NATO headquarters in Brussels, said in a statement. “Pakistan has an important role to play in that future.”
Senior Obama administration officials said that there had been enough progress on talks, which have lasted weeks, to reopen the supply routes, and that the deal was close enough to extend the invitation to attend the summit meeting.
“We do want to see these land routes opened,” the State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said in Washington. “We are continuing to work on it. But we thought it was important to have them at the summit in this partnership role.”
It is not yet clear whether President Obama would hold a separate meeting with Mr. Zardari, if the Pakistan leader attends, American officials said. Mr. Obama and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani met on the sidelines of a nuclear summit meeting in Seoul, South Korea, in March.
Many Pakistani officials said the NATO invitation was a critical step in helping secure a supply line deal. The public display of indecision over whether to attend was widely seen as playing to a domestic audience in which anti-American sentiment runs high.
Earlier on Monday, Hina Rabbani Khar, the Pakistani foreign minister, told reporters in Islamabad that six months after the Salala border episode, time had come to move on and that NATO supplies could not be stopped indefinitely.
“I think we need a closure on that and move on,” Ms. Khar said at a news briefing.
“We want to continue to be a facilitator, enabler and not a blocker,” Ms. Khar said. “Reopening will happen when it will happen. The issue is not just that of relations with the U.S. but with other 42 countries that have stakes in Afghanistan,” she said.
Senior American officials said the two sides had not yet resolved two other thorny issues: more than $1 billion in payments Pakistan says the United States owes for deploying some 150,000 troops along the border with Afghanistan; and an apology for the airstrike last November.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/w...o-meeting-with-an-eye-toward-afghanistan.html
Lightning strikes KRL
From the Newspaper | 19th May, 2012
THIS is apropos of a news item(May 14) regarding lightning strikes at KRL. The news item says: “A substantial part of a section of a sensitive government installation in Kahuta was heavily damaged when its building was struck by lightning on Saturday night, Dawn learnt on Sunday through a security source.”(Dawn.com).
What made this news more shocking is that the next day a meeting was called at the presidency to discuss the Nato supply route opening. I hope both news don’t have any connection.
ABID EJAZ
Karachi
http://dawn.com/2012/05/19/lightning-strikes-krl/
Note:
Just throwing it out there.I found it interesting at the time as decided to share now.
The facts are that NATO supply issue was decided in principle in May by DCC. And the government had to figure the correct timing.
ET already reported Letal/Nonlethal supplies were being carried by Air from May.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/401852/pakistan-secretly-permitting-lethal-nato-supply-via-air/
Also at the Time I did check the weather data for Pindi airport around 10 KM from Kahuta, No Lightning strikes were reported. Cant find the data now. If anyone has the weather data for Pindi of that week please share.
http://www.accuweather.com/en/pk/rawalpindi/260625/may-weather/260625?monyr=5/1/2012&view=table
No rain reported from 13th-19th May 2012 from weather station at Rawalpindi.
This isnt so far fethced. See the raids on PNS Mehran raid and Abbotabad. There are definately things going on we never hear about.
Snyone from Pindi/Military wants to chime in.Its possible but not very probable in my opinion.
Just a conspiracy theory....For Now:P
Of course the Bobby Deols and Jackie sharofs over the Border have there on Conspiracy theory, on the events.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahom...clear-installation-raises-Indias-hackles.html(yapping)
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