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RISING SUN

RISING SUN

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Dec 3, 2017
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SCO endorses India's proposal for UN terror treaty
NEW DELHI: India’s proposal for UN Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) got a shot in the arm when the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) said in a declaration on Sunday that a comprehensive UN treaty on fighting international terrorism should be passed by reaching consensus based on UN documents such as the Charter of the United Nations.

“The member states will boost cooperation in fighting the spread and propaganda of terrorist ideas on the Internet, including public justification of terrorism, the recruitment of new members to terrorist groups, incitement to commit terrorist acts, financing of terrorism and the spread of information about ways to carry out terrorist attacks on the Internet,” read the SCO declaration adopted at the two-day Qingdao summit.

The declaration suggested that the global community pool its efforts to counter attempts to lure young people into terrorist, extremist and separatist groups. Besides, SCO members expressed concern about “threats emerging from the growing production, trade and misuse of narcotic substances, as well as from the use of proceeds of illicit drug trafficking for financing terrorism”.

The SCO is among the few regional groupings that have a separate body – RATS, in this case, based in Tashkent – to counter terrorism on the ground. Strengthening security architecture in the Eurasian region is one of the key goals for the eight-member grouping.

The CCIT is currently being discussed at the Sixth Ad Hoc Committee of the United Nations and has been blocked by the USA, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states and South American countries over definition of ‘terrorism’. The OIC wants exclusion of national liberation movements, especially in the context of Israel-Palestinian conflict. The US wanted the CCIT draft to exclude acts committed by military forces of states during peacetime. The Modi government has urged several member states of the OIC to adopt the CCIT.

The global community has so far failed to develop rules under which terrorists shall be prosecuted or extradited. The CCIT would give “legal teeth to prosecute terrorist acts”, according to Indian officials. India has raised the issue of the need for endorsement of the CCIT across several bilateral and multilateral forums for the past two decades, irrespective of governments in Delhi. The CCIT provides a legal framework which makes it binding on all signatories to deny funds and safe havens to terrorist groups.

Although consensus has so far eluded adoption of the terrorism convention, discussions have yielded three separate protocols that aim to tackle terrorism – International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, adopted on December 15, 1997; International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, adopted on December 9, 1999; and International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, adopted on April 13, 2005.

Besides the CCIT, fight against corruption including information sharing was included in the SCO declaration in what can be viewed as an endorsement of the Modi government’s appeal for global fight against corruption.

The document stressed that corruption in all its manifestations poses a threat to national and regional security, decreasing the efficiency of state management, negatively affecting investment attractiveness and hindering social and economic development. “The member states call for boosting international cooperation in the fight against corruption, particularly through exchanging experiences and information,” read the declaration.
SCO endorses India's proposal for UN terror treaty
 
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The World Transformed and No One in America Noticed

The world transformed and nobody in the West noticed. India and Pakistan have joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The 17 year-old body since its founding on June 15, 2001 has quietly established itself as the main alliance and grouping of nations across Eurasia. Now it has expanded from six nations to eight, and the two new members are the giant nuclear-armed regional powers of South Asia, India, with a population of 1.324 billion and Pakistan, with 193.2 million people (both in 2016).

In other words, the combined population of the SCO powers or already well over 1.5 billion has virtually doubled at a single stroke.

The long-term global consequences of this development are enormous. It is likely to prove the single most important factor insuring peace and removing the threat of nuclear war over South Asia and from 20 percent of the human race. It now raises the total population of the world in the eight SCO nations to 40 percent, including one of the two most powerful thermonuclear armed nations (Russia) and three other nuclear powers (China, India and Pakistan).

This development is a diplomatic triumph especially for Moscow. Russia has been seeking for decades to ease its longtime close strategic ally India into the SCO umbrella. This vision was clearly articulated by one of Russia’s greatest strategic minds of the 20th century, former Premier and Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who died in 2015. In the past China quietly but steadfastly blocked the India’s accession, but with Pakistan, China’s ally joining at the same time, the influence of Beijing and Moscow is harmonized.

The move can only boost Russia’s already leading role in the diplomacy and national security of the Asian continent. For both Beijing and Delhi, the road for good relations with each other and the resolution of issues such as sharing the water resources of the Himalayas and investing in the economic development of Africa now runs through Moscow. President Vladimir Putin is ideally placed to be the regular interlocutor between the two giant nations of Asia.

The move also must be seen as a most significant reaction by India to the increasing volatility and unpredictability of the United States in the global arena. In Washington and Western Europe, it is fashionable and indeed reflexively inevitable that this is entirely blamed on President Donald Trump.

But in reality this alarming trend goes back at least to the bombing of Kosovo by the United States and its NATO allies in 1998, defying the lack of sanction in international law for any such action at the time because other key members of the United Nations Security Council opposed it.

Since then, under four successive presidents, the US appetite for unpredictable military interventions around the world – usually bungled and open-ended – has inflicted suffering and instability on a wide range of nations, primarily in the Middle East (Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen) but also in Eurasia (Ukraine) and South Asia (Afghanistan).

The accession of both India and Pakistan to the SCO is also a stunning repudiation of the United States.

The US has been Pakistan’s main strategic ally and protector over the past more than 70 years since it achieved independence (Dean Acheson, secretary of state through the 1949-53 Truman administration was notorious for his racist contempt for all Indians, as well as for his anti-Semitism and hatred of the Irish).

US-Pakistan relations have steadily deteriorated even since the United States charged into Afghanistan in November 2001, but through it all, US policymakers have always taken for granted that Islamabad at the end of the day would “stay on the reservation” and ultimately dance to their tune.

The United States has courted India for 17 years since President Bill Clinton’s state visit in 2000, which I covered in his press party. Current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a Joint Session of Congress in 2016, the ultimate accolade of approval by the US political establishment for any foreign leader.

US policymakers and pundits have endlessly pontificated that India, as an English speaking democracy would become America‘s ideological and strategic partner in opposing the inevitable rise of China on the world stage. It turned out to be a fantasy.

During the era of the Cold War, the “loss” of any nation of the size and standing of India or Pakistan to a rival or just independent ideological camp and security grouping would have provoked waves of shock, hurt, rage and even openly expressed fear in the US media.

However, what we have seen following this latest epochal development is far more extraordinary. The decisions by Delhi and Islamabad have not been praised, condemned or even acknowledged in the mainstream of US political and strategic debate. They have just been entirely ignored. To see the leaders and opinion-shapers of a major superpower that still imagines it is the dominant hyper-power conduct its affairs in this way is potentially worrying and alarming.

The reality is that we live in a multipolar world – and that we have clearly done so at least since 2001. However, this obvious truth will continue to be denied in Washington, London and Paris in flat defiance of the abundantly clear facts.

The World Transformed and No One in America Noticed
 
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RISING SUN said:
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We are going to be used by Russia again. What's with this propensity of handing out our geostrategic objectives to a weaker country? People shout non-alignment at the same time Russia will make a pro-China deal infront of our bumbling foolish diplomats.
www.google.com

India, China troops to take part in Russian exercise; Pakistan may join

This will be the first time that troops of the two countries will see each other in a friendly exercise since tensions began along the LAC in Ladakh early May.
www.google.com
What's the logic of attending this with rival countries do we have no self-respect ?? We skip out on RIMPAC and continue with this embarrassment. Seriously the foreign policymakers have to get their heads out of their behinds because we will again miss out the train and be relegated to be a joke on International geopolitics. U.S is the way to go and the Indo-China dispute should be bilateral issue with multi lateral backing of India's position simple as that. We don't need a negotiator or mediator. But folks at the MEA still read "my experiments with truth" rather than Arthashastra so we will continue to get this foolishness again and again..
 

Cabinet approves Signing and Ratification of an Agreement on “Cooperation in the field of Mass Media” between all the Member States of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation​

The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given its ex-post facto approvalfor signing and ratification of an Agreement on “Cooperation in the field of Mass Media” between all the Member States of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. The Agreement was signed in June, 2019.


The Agreement shall promote equal and mutually beneficial cooperation among associations in the field of Mass Media. Each Side shall, on the basis of reciprocity, facilitate the activities thereby ensuring equity. The Agreement would provide an opportunity for the Member States to share best practices and new innovations in the field of Mass Media.


Features:


The main areas of cooperation are following:


i. creation of favorable conditions for wide and mutual distribution of information through the Mass Media in order to further deepen the knowledge about the lives of the peoples of their States.;


ii. cooperation among the Editorial Offices of the Mass Media of their States, as well as among the relevant Ministries, Agencies and Organizations working in the field of the Mass Media, specific conditions and forms of which shall be determined by the participants themselves, including through conclusion of separate agreements;


iii. promote equal and mutually beneficial cooperation among professional associations of journalists of the States of the Sides in order to study the available professional experience, as well as to hold meetings, seminars and conferences in the field of Mass Media;


iv. assist in broadcasting of television and radio programs and programs, distributed legally within the territory of the State of the other Side, the legal broadcasting by Editorial Offices of materials and information, if their distribution meets the requirements of the legislation of the States of the Sides;


v. encourage the exchange of experience and specialists in the field of Mass Media, provide mutual assistance in training media professionals and encourage cooperation among the educational and scientific-research institutions and Organizations operating in this field.
pib.gov.in

Cabinet approves Signing and Ratification of an Agreement on “Cooperation in the field of Mass Media” between all the Member States of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given its ex-post facto appr
pib.gov.in
 

Doval, Pakistan NSA agree to cooperate in SCO fight against terrorism​

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Pakistan counterpart Moeed Yusuf joined NSAs of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member countries in Dushanbe where they agreed to cooperate in the joint fight against the threats of “international terrorism”, “extremism”, “separatism” and “religious radicalism”, a statement issued by host Tajikistan stated Wednesday.

The official statement, issued in Tajik, said special attention was given to the “current military and political situation in Afghanistan” and the risk of “escalation”.

It said the NSAs met Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon. This was the 16th meeting of the Secretaries of the Security Councils of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

President Rahmon said Tajikistan, as the current SCO chairman, attaches great importance to the meeting of the NSAs. Cooperation in the joint fight against the threats of international terrorism, extremism, separatism, religious radicalism, the risks of increasing transnational organised crime, including arms and drug trafficking, were discussed at the meeting, the statement said.

The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) of the SCO, it said, can play an important role in ensuring regional security and strengthening ties between member states in combating threats and challenges of the modern world.

The meeting also discussed cooperation between member states in ensuring reliable information security, the joint fight against cybercrime and the issues of biological security and food security in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, the statement said.

Besides Doval and Yusuf, the meeting was attended by Asset Issekeshev of Kazakhstan, Marat Imankulov of the Kyrgyz Republic, Nikolai Patrushev of Russia, Nasrullo Mahmudzoda of Tajikistan, Bobur Usmanov of Uzbekistan and RATS Director Jumakhon Giyosov. There was no representative from China, according to the Tajik statement, nor was he seen in the group photo with Rahmon.

According to Russian news agency TASS, the Russian Security Council said Patrushev and Doval discussed in detail “further plans of the Russia-India interaction in the security sphere, cooperation among the security and law-enforcement agencies”. The two NSAs had met on Tuesday and had exchanged opinions on the situation in Afghanistan and the Asia-Pacific region, it said.

While there was no word about a possible meeting between Doval and Yusuf, the fact that the two shared the table was a significant development in the wake of the fluid situation in Afghanistan and the fragile LoC peace between India and Pakistan that has been holding for the last four months.

India and Pakistan have been holding back-channel talks for the last few months, with Doval leading the Indian initiative with Pakistan’s civilian-military leadership. He was said to have met Yusuf and ISI chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed in a third country, and had also kept communication channels open with Pakistan Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa.
indianexpress.com

Doval, Pakistan NSA agree to cooperate in SCO fight against terrorism

India and Pakistan have been holding back-channel talks for the last few months, with Doval leading the Indian initiative with Pakistan’s civilian-military leadership.
indianexpress.com indianexpress.com
 

India invited to SCO meet on Afghanistan​

Three meetings scheduled in the Central Asian states of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan this week will allow external affairs minister S Jaishankar to compare notes on the rapidly evolving situation in Afghanistan with interlocutors from several key countries.

Jaishankar will visit the Central Asian states against the backdrop of growing concern in the region over the Taliban’s violent campaign aimed at capturing territory while stalling on peace talks aimed at finding a political settlement.

He will visit Tajikistan during July 13-14 at the invitation of foreign minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin to participate in a meeting of foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). On the second day of the visit, he will take part in a meeting of the SCO Contact Group on Afghanistan.

Jaishankar will then travel to Uzbekistan to participate in a conference on regional trade, transport and connectivity in Tashkent during July 15-16. He is expected to meet several key interlocutors on the margins of the conference with the theme “Central and South Asia: Regional connectivity. Challenges and opportunities”.

Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi is set to attend all three events, but people familiar with developments said on condition of anonymity that no bilateral meeting with Jaishankar has been lined up.

Though the main item on the agenda of the SCO foreign ministers’ meeting is the preparations for meeting of the SCO heads of states to be held in Dushanbe during September 16-17, the people cited above said, adding that the situation in Afghanistan is expected to figure prominently in the discussions.

Afghanistan has observer status with SCO, which includes India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and Afghan foreign minister Haneef Atmar is expected to participate in both meetings in Dushanbe.

Though the focus of the conference in Uzbekistan is on regional trade and connectivity, the presence of top leaders will provide opportunities for the Indian side to discuss the situation in Afghanistan on the margins of the meeting. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is expected to attend the meeting in Tashkent.

The Uzbek government was keen to rope in the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers for the meeting in Tashkent, but the two countries will be represented by their foreign ministers. Representatives of China, Russia, Iran, the European Union and the US are also set to participate in the meeting.

India has expressed strong concerns about the levels of violence in Afghanistan and Jaishankar asserted the need for a legitimate government in Kabul during a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow last week. Russia has its own concerns about the violence in Afghanistan spilling over into the Central Asian states.
www.hindustantimes.com

India invited to SCO meet on Afghanistan

Jaishankar will then travel to Uzbekistan to participate in a conference on regional trade, transport and connectivity in Tashkent during July 15-16.
www.hindustantimes.com www.hindustantimes.com
 
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