Germany urges Pakistan to attend Afghan talks

BERLIN: The German government has urged Pakistan to reverse its decision not to attend international talks on Afghanistan in Germany next week as a result of a cross-border Nato air attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, a German official said on Wednesday.

“Pakistan itself has a big interest in the Afghan conference being a success,” foreign ministry spokesman Andreas Peschke told a regular German government news conference.

The Pakistan government said on Tuesday it was pulling out of the Dec. 5 conference on the future of Afghanistan in Bonn, “but at the same time they have not yet formally withdrawn from the conference”, Peschke said.

He said Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and the diplomats organising the talks were in contact with Pakistan, which has called the weekend attack an unprovoked act of aggression.

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Turkey says imposing economic sanctions on Syrian regime

ANKARA: Turkey has decided to impose economic and financial sanctions on the Syrian regime over its bloody crackdown on the opposition, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Wednesday.

He said the Syrian regime was “at an impasse” and “prefers to repress its people rather than engage in democratic reforms.”

Davutoglu announced an immediate ban on transactions with the Syrian government and central bank and a freeze on Syrian government assets in Turkey.

Similar measures will be taken against “some well-known businessmen who are strong advocates of the Syrian regime,” he added.

Further measures include a ban on Syrian officials visiting Turkey and halting the transfer of arms and military equipment to the Syrian army.

Turkey will also suspend the high-level strategic council mechanism under which a dozen ministers from both countries convened a few times a year to discuss joint projects before the uprising began in March.

Ankara’s measures come after Arab foreign ministers agreed on Sunday a list of sweeping sanctions designed to cripple the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which has defied international pressure to halt a bloody crackdown on protests.

Davutoglu underlined that Turkey would not take any measures that would harm the Syrian people and warned the government would contemplate “additional measures” according to the steps taken by the Syrian administration.

Turkey’s sanctions aimed at punishing the Syrian regime are likely to dent trade ties between the two countries.

Current trade volume stands at around 2.5 billion dollars, favourable to Turkey.

Syria is also a major transit country for Turkey’s trade with Middle Eastern countries.

Turkey, a one-time ally of Syria, is increasingly concerned about the regime’s crackdown on dissidents.

Davutoglu called on the Syrian leadership to fulfill people’s legitimate demands as soon as possible, saying that was the only way out of the current impasse.

“At this difficult time, Turkey will continue to stand by the Syrian people resolutely because we strongly believe that we share a common future with Syrian people and will build it together,” he said.

Turkey has stepped up criticism of Assad’s crackdown on opposition protests since Turkish diplomatic missions came under attack by pro-government demonstrators in several Syrian cities earlier this month.

Tensions worsened when two busloads of Turkish pilgrims who were in Syria on their way back from the hajj in Mecca were attacked by Syrian gunmen.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week urged his one-time ally to step down, becoming the second regional leader to do so after Jordan’s King Abdullah.

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Two million strike in Britain over pension changes

LONDON: Two million public sector workers in Britain went on strike on Wednesday over changes to their pensions in the biggest walkout for decades, which is expected to cause widespread disruption.

Three-quarters of schools were closed, hospitals were only ensuring emergency care, local authorities were paralysed and airports and ports were expected to be badly affected.

Striking workers picketed public sector buildings in central London and more than 1,000 demonstrations were expected to take place across Britain in scenes reminiscent of the 1970s.

Passengers arriving at London’s Heathrow airport, one of the world’s busiest air hubs, have been warned to expect delays of up to three hours to have their passports checked as border control officials join the action.

The strike will be the biggest test so far of Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative-Liberal coalition government, which sparked the unions’ fury by making public sector workers pay more into their pensions and work longer.

Anger rose further on Tuesday when finance minister George Osborne targeted the pay of teachers, nurses and soldiers and revealed plans to cut an extra 300,000 public sector jobs as he slashed Britain’s growth forecasts.

Osborne also infuriated the unions by announcing a two-year, one-per cent cap on public sector pay rises.

On Wednesday, Osborne said the strike would only harm the economy, and called for unions to return to the negotiating table.

“The strike is not going to achieve anything, it’s not going to change anything,” the Chancellor of the Exchequer told BBC TV.

“It is only going to make our economy weaker and potentially cost jobs.

“So let’s get back round the negotiating table, let’s get a pension deal that is fair to the public sector, that gives decent pensions for many, many decades to come but which this county can also afford and our taxpayers can afford.

“That is what we should be doing today, not seeing these strikes.”

But Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), said the public sector was “under attack” by the government and the strike was fully justified.

“There comes a time when people really have to stand up and make a stand,” he told ITV.

“With the scale of change the government are trying to force through, making people work much, much longer and get much, much less.”

Barber denied that public sector workers’ pensions were “gold-plated” compared to their counterparts in the private sector, and he stressed that the majority were low-paid workers.

At Heathrow Airport, immigration staff were drafted in from other sites to replace striking workers and some airlines cancelled flights in a bid to avoid long queues at immigration.

However, passengers arriving on early morning flights from Australia and the United States reported few problems.

A British Airways spokesman said: “We’ve had a positive start to the day and queues are pretty much as normal.

“There are reports that around two-thirds of the Border Agency staff are working at Heathrow.”

Elsewhere in England, a giant union rally was to take place in the industrial central city of Birmingham.

In Scotland, 300,000 workers were expected to walk out and transport in Northern Ireland faced disruption.

Under the government’s proposals, public sector workers will be asked to work until they are 66 and increase their pension contribution payments.

The government also plans to peg pension payouts to the Retail Price Index rate of inflation rather than the higher Consumer Price Index measure as it seeks to address the dual challenge of increased life expectancy and a depleted public purse.

Staff also face a lower pension payout, based on their average salary as opposed to the final salary schemes to which they are currently tied.

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FO has no record of alleged memo: FM Khar

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Wednesday said there was no record of the alleged memo with the foreign office, FTNews reported.

She further said that American officials never mentioned the existence of the said memo either privately or through official channels.

Briefing the Senate’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Khar said the army and the ISI had been targeted in the alleged memo. She said the time when the memo was supposedly sent was not one when the government was facing any kind of threat from the army and nor was it facing any threat presently.

Khar as the government only had as much information about the alleged memo as the media has been providing.

She moreover stressed that demanding a resignation from Husain Haqqani was imperative in order to carry out a transparent investigation into the subject.

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Seventy-nine injured in skirmishes in Cairo’s Tahrir

CAIRO: Clashes between protesters and street vendors in Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square injured some 79 people overnight, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

The skirmishes erupted when protesters occupying the square for nearly two weeks tried to expel the peddlers, but the fighting quickly degenerated into clashes with both sides lobbing rocks and molotov cocktails, witnesses said.

The violence took place hours after Egyptians wrapped up two days of peaceful polling in the first phase of multi-stage elections for a new parliament.

Most of the injuries were treated on the spot but 27 people were admitted to hospital, the health ministry said.

Protesters have been occupying the square to demand the ouster of the military junta which took power when Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in a popular uprising in February.

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Bomb in India’s restive northeast kills one

GAUHATI: Police say a bomb explosion has killed at least one person in India’s violence-wracked northeast.

A police official says the blast occurred Wednesday near a large fairground in Imphal, the capital of Manipur state. The area is near a convention center that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to visit Saturday.

The police official says the victim appeared to have been carrying the bomb.

The official did not identify himself, citing department policy.

Few other details were immediately available.

Separatist groups in the region claim the local population is ignored by the federal government.

Most residents are ethnically closer to groups in Myanmar and China than the rest of India.

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Five dead in Mogadishu military bomb blast: officials

MOGADISHU: Five people died in a blast on Wednesday including a suicide bomber after he detonated an explosive device at the gates of a military base in the Somali capital, officials and witnesses said.

“The suicide bomber tried to enter the compound but guards stopped him, when he then detonated his bomb, killing three people on the spot including himself,” said Farah Barre, a government security official.

“Two more people died soon after from their wounds,” he said, adding the attack on Wednesday morning took place at Villa Baidoa, a government military base near the busy K4 roundabout in central Mogadishu.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest in a string of blasts including roadside bombs and grenade explosions that have rocked Mogadishu in recent weeks.

The war-torn city has seen an increase in such attacks since al-Qaeda-linked Shebab rebels abandoned fixed positions there in August and switched to guerrilla tactics against the Western-backed government.

Witnesses said the bomber had tried to disguise himself as a government soldier to gain access into the compound.

“I saw a man dressed in military uniform trying to enter the gate but he was stopped, and then minutes later I heard the huge blast,” said Ahmed Mahmud, who was drinking tea on the street nearby.

“I saw four bodies being carried away, and the bits of the body of the bomber were scattered around.”

Last month a Shebab suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden truck, killing at least 82 and wounding many more, the bloodiest such attack in the group’s history.

The hardline insurgents control large parts of southern Somalia but are facing increasing pressure from regional armies and government forces.

Kenyan troops are battling the rebels in the far south, Ethiopia forces are in the south and west, while Ugandan and Burundian soldiers in the African Union force in Mogadishu are supporting government efforts.

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Britain pulls embassy staff out of Iran: sources

TEHRAN: Britain has evacuated all its diplomatic staff from Iran, Western diplomatic sources told Reuters on Wednesday, a day after protesters stormed and ransacked its embassy and a residential compound.

Britain said it was outraged by the attacks and warned of “serious consequences”.

The UN Security Council condemned the attacks “in the strongest terms”. US President Barack Obama called on Iran to hold those responsible to account.

No comment was immediately available from the British government on the reported withdrawal of embassy staff from Iran.

On Tuesday, Iranian protesters stormed two British diplomatic compounds in Tehran, smashing windows, torching a car and burning the British flag in protest against new sanctions imposed by London.

The attacks occurred at a time of rising diplomatic tension between Iran and Western nations, which last week imposed fresh sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear programme that they believe is aimed at achieving the capability of making an atomic bomb.

Iran, the world’s fifth biggest oil exporter, says it wants nuclear plants only for the generation of electricity.

The embassy storming was also a sign of deepening political infighting within Iran’s ruling hardline elites, with the conservative-led parliament attempting to force the hand of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and expel the British ambassador.

“Radicals in Iran and in the West are always in favour of crisis…such radical hardliners in Iran will use the crisis to unite people and also to blame the crisis for the fading economy,” said political analyst Hasan Sedghi.

Several dozen protesters broke away from a crowd of a few hundred outside the main British embassy compound in Tehran, scaled the gates, broke the locks and went inside.

Protesters pulled down the British flag, burned it and put up the Iranian flag, Iranian news agencies and news pictures showed.

Inside, the demonstrators smashed windows of office and residential quarters and set a car ablaze, news pictures showed.

One took a framed picture of Queen Elizabeth, state TV showed. Others carried the royal crest out through the embassy gate as police stood by, pictures carried by the semi-official Fars news agency showed.

All embassy personnel were accounted for, a British diplomat told Reuters in Washington, saying Britain did not believe that any sensitive materials had been seized.

Demonstrators waved flags symbolising martyrdom and held aloft portraits of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has the final say on matters of state in Iran.

Another group of protesters broke into a second British compound at Qolhak in north Tehran, the IRNA state news agency said.

Once the embassy’s summer quarters, the sprawling, tree-lined compound is now used to house diplomatic staff.

An Iranian report said six British embassy staff had been briefly held by the protesters. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the situation had been “confusing” and that he would not have called them “hostages”.

“Police freed the six people working for the British embassy in Qolhak garden,” Iran’s Fars news agency said.

A German school next to the Qolhak compound was also damaged, the German government said.

Britain outraged

Police appeared to have cleared the demonstrators in front of the main embassy compound, but later clashed with protesters and fired tear gas to try to disperse them, Fars said. Protesters nevertheless entered the compound a second time, before once again leaving, it said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron chaired a meeting of the government crisis committee to discuss the attacks, which he said were “outrageous and indefensible”.

“The failure of the Iranian government to defend British staff and property was a disgrace,” he said in a statement.

“The Iranian government must recognise that there will be serious consequences for failing to protect our staff. We will consider what these measures should be in the coming days.”

The United States, alongside the European Union and many of its member states also strongly condemned the attacks.

There have been regular protests outside the British embassy over the years since the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the US-backed shah, but never have any been so violent.

The attacks and hostage-taking were a reminder of the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran carried out by radical students who held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. The United States cut diplomatic ties with Iran after the hostage-taking.

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US prepares to vacate Pakistan air base

The United States is preparing to accede to Pakistani demands that it vacate a remote air base in Pakistan used for drone flights, but the move is not expected to have a significant impact on operations against militants, US government sources say.

Washington is treading lightly not to aggravate an already fragile relationship that was bruised further by a Nato attack on a Pakistani military outpost last weekend that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers near the Afghanistan border.

Pakistan demanded that the United States leave the Shamsi Air Base within 15 days and blocked ground supply routes through Pakistan to US forces in Afghanistan.

Three sources, who declined to be identified because of the issue’s sensitivity, said US planning is under way to leave the base, a remote facility in Balochistan that has been a point of contention.

The cross-border incident escalated tensions between the two countries and the US military is conducting an investigation to find out exactly what happened on the ground.

The moves by the Pakistanis to block ground supply routes and the air base were not expected to significantly hinder US operations.

One US government source said the United States has spent months preparing for a possible eviction from the Pakistan base by building up other drone launching and staging capability.

Earlier this year, after the US raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, some Pakistani officials demanded that Washington vacate the Shamsi facility.

At the time, however, US officials said that American personnel would remain at the base and would continue to conduct drone flights in pursuit of militants.

But in one concession, the United States stopped conducting lethal drone operations from that base and limited operations to surveillance flights.

US officials believe that this time Pakistan appears much more resolute about carrying out the eviction threat.

Vacating the air base was seen more as an inconvenience rather than a critical blow to drone operations which the United States also conducts from Afghanistan and possibly elsewhere.

BLOCKED SUPPLY ROUTE
The United States also has to deal with the blocking of the ground supply route through Pakistan to Afghanistan.

US Congressman C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger, the senior Democrat on the House of Representatives intelligence committee, said that route accounts for less than half the supplies for international forces in Afghanistan and the military has contingency plans.

“We have a large distribution network to make sure that coalition forces are well-stocked,” he told Reuters. “It’s not going to affect our ability to follow through and execute our mission.”

Yet alternate supply routes such as the northern distribution network are not a perfect substitute and there are concerns that the cost of keeping soldiers fed, armed and fueled without use of Pakistani roads would be excessive.

Ruppersberger, who visited Pakistan to meet with officials after US forces killed bin Laden, said the relationship was poor at that point.

“We were starting to improve in the last month or so and then all of a sudden this unfortunate incident occurred, and now we’re right back to where we were again,” he said.

“It is to the advantage of both countries to work together,” Ruppersberger said. “In the end that will come. It’s about relationships, it’s about trust, and unfortunately that hasn’t been there for a while.”

Ruppersberger would not comment on the Shamsi departure.

STILL INVESTIGATING
US officials said there is still considerable confusion about details of the latest border incident.

Wary of further damaging an already delicate situation, US officials were reluctant to speculate about what happened before getting the results of military investigations.

“The focus of the administration at this point is on trying to find ways to show Pakistan that we’re serious about investigating the incident and forging a cooperative relationship in the future,” a US official said on condition of anonymity.

“No one at this point has the complete narrative on what happened,” Pentagon spokesman said.

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US urges Pakistan to reconsider Bonn talks boycott

WASHINGTON: The United States urged Pakistan on Tuesday to reconsider its decision to boycott a conference on Afghanistan in Germany next week, saying it plays a key role in the future of its war-torn central Asian neighbour.

Pakistan decided earlier Tuesday to boycott the December 5 Bonn conference as it widened its protest over lethal cross-border Nato strikes on Saturday that have exacerbated a deep crisis in US ties.

“It’s important to note that this conference is… about Afghanistan, about its future, about building a safer, more prosperous Afghanistan within the region,” State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.

“It’s very much in Pakistan’s interest to attend this conference,” Toner said.

Toner, who declined to be drawn on whether the United States regretted the decision in Islamabad, said Pakistan had not informed Washington directly of its decision because Germany is the host of the conference.

But he repeated that “it’s in their interests, so we think… it’s important that they be there.”He added: “Pakistan has a crucial role to play in supporting a secure and stable and prosperous Afghanistan.

“It’s absolutely critical that Afghanistan’s neighbours play a role in its future development,” Toner said. “Its relationship with Pakistan has been critical in that regard.”

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Germany hopes Pakistan will still attend Afghanistan meet

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday she was “very sorry” about Pakistan’s announced boycott of a Bonn conference next week on the future of Afghanistan and would try to convince it to attend.

Merkel said Germany would “see what could be done to change” Islamabad’s decision to stay away from the meeting in the western German city.

“We are both interested in constructive development of Afghanistan,”Merkel, who will open the Bonn conference, told reporters flanked by visiting King Abdullah II of Jordan.

“Which is why I consider the conference hosted by the (German) foreign minister to be very important. We always said that conflicts can only be resolved in the region and Pakistan is part of this region which is why we are very sorry that this cancellation came today.”

Merkel said Berlin still hoped Islamabad would attend the Bonn meeting, which will draw delegations from around 100 countries to discuss commitments to the war-ravaged country after the withdrawal of Nato troops in 2014.

Among the invited guests is US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“I understand Pakistan’s concern about the loss of human life due to Nato troops but this should not distract from the fact that this Afghanistan conference is a very, very important conference,” she said.

“There was a loya jirga (grand assembly) in Afghanistan and there is now a very, very good chance for a possible political process. On the one hand I can understand (the boycott) but on the other, we will see what still can be done.”Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, who is organising the conference, said later that Berlin was “of course” in contact with the Pakistani government over its pulling out and said it would be a “setback” if Islamabad did not attend.

“The success of the Afghanistan conference is not only important for Afghanistan but also for the entire region, for all neighbouring countries and of course and in particular for Pakistan,” he said.

Westerwelle added he understood Pakistani ire over the Nato bombing on Saturday and urged a speedy probe by the alliance to get to the bottom of how it occurred.

“You can imagine for a moment if something so horrible had happened to us and our country were mourning such a large number of victims —I ask that to be always be considered in judging decisions taken.”

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