Pak Must Take "Irreversible Steps" Against Terror For India Talks: US

Agencies
October 25, 2019

Washington, Oct 25: US President Donald Trump is ready to mediate between India and Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir only if asked by both the countries, a senior administration official said on Thursday reiterating that the onus for peace talks lies on Islamabad by taking sustained and irreversible actions against terrorist groups.

Donald Trump obviously has expressed his concern over the level of tension between India and Pakistan. And he discussed Kashmir directly in his meetings with Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Imran Khan, a senior State Department official said.

"He (Trump) certainly is prepared to play a mediation role, if both the countries ask. It has been India's position not to seek outside mediation," said the official in response to a question.

Requesting anonymity, the official said the US will continue to encourage an atmosphere that will allow for constructive dialogue, that also includes important steps that Pakistan will need to take to show there are irreversible and sustainable actions as one precludes the cross border terrorism that has hijacked earlier efforts at constructive bilateral dialogue between the two countries.

If the president is asked to mediate by both countries, he has expressed his willingness and his interests to help facilitate a solution, the official told a group of reporters when pressed further. India has been quite clear in Prime Minister Modi's office saying that they are not seeking mediation, the official said.

That doesn't mean that the US is not actively encouraging that a dialogue take place and that an atmosphere for constructive dialogue between the two countries be established, the official said.

The official termed the signing of Memorandum of Understanding on Kartarpur Corridor a welcome confidence building measure between India and Pakistan which will help increase people-to-people contact.

"While it's a small step, we need more like this to also create the will, the goodwill and the environment for constructive dialogue," the official said.

Asked if the US supports India's position that "talks and terror cannot go together", the official said it is important that Pakistan take "sustainable and irreversible steps against terrorism". It is also possible to have a dialogue and the United States encourages the countries to engage as two nuclear powers living side by side, the official said.

When you have two nuclear powers that have fought to military conflict under a nuclear umbrella, it is important that your all avenues be explored to increase contact and communication between the two sides, the official said, adding that President Trump is engaged with leaders of both the countries.

Referring to the Howdy Modi event in Houston in September, the official said this demonstrated the very close partnership and friendship that the US has with India.

"The India-US strategic partnership has been growing over the last two and a half years. It is obviously part of a longer bipartisan two decade's of effort to improve relations with India that has now reached a stage of confidence and maturity," the official said.

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News Network
November 7,2024

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The Israeli regime has killed at least 40 people during new airstrikes against eastern Lebanese areas, besides targeting the country’s capital Beirut with fresh acts of aggression.

Lebanon’s health ministry announced the fatalities on Wednesday, saying 53 other people had also been wounded during the aerial attacks that targeted the country’s Bekaa Valley, including the city of Baalbek.

In early Thursday, the regime was also reported to have attacked Beirut’s southern suburbs, including a site adjacent to Rafiq Hariri International Airport.

The attacks came after the regime issued short-notice evacuation orders apparently directed at the residents of the areas, claiming that the areas contained facilities belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement.

Tel Aviv has been using similar claims on countless occasions since last October, when it markedly intensified its deadly acts of aggression against Lebanon, in order to try to justify the escalation. Hezbollah has, however, invariably refuted the claims.

Also on Wednesday, the United Nations warned in its most recent flash report on the humanitarian crisis caused by the Israeli atrocities targeting Lebanon that the aggression had “reached a critical point.”

The attacks have claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people, which was “58 percent more than the 1,900 fatalities” that were caused by the regime’s 2006 war against Lebanon, the report said.

“Additionally, an estimated 1.3 million people have been displaced, both within Lebanon and into neighboring countries, 33 percent more than the number of people displaced in 2006,” it added.

Women comprised the majority of those who had been rendered homeless within Lebanon as a result of the Israeli attacks, the report noted.

It also regretted that the Israeli attacks had featured 78 assaults on healthcare facilities across the country that had claimed the lives of 130 health workers and injured 111 others.

In response to the aggression, Hezbollah has been staging hundreds of retaliatory strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli forces trying to advance on southern Lebanese areas.

The movement has vowed to sustain its strikes until the regime ends the escalation.

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November 14,2024

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Bengaluru: The Prime Minister Narendra Modi led union government has requested the Karnataka High Court to direct the Mandya district administration and the state government to clear a madrasa operating within the premises of the historic Jama Masjid in Srirangapatna.

The Waqf Board, opposing this move, has claimed the mosque as its property and defended the right to conduct madrasa activities there.

The matter was brought before a division bench headed by Chief Justice N V Anjaria following a public interest litigation filed by a person named Abhishek Gowda from Kabbalu village in Kanakapura taluk. The petition alleged “unauthorised madrasa activities” within the mosque.

Representing the Central government, Additional Solicitor General of India for High Court of Karnataka, K Arvind Kamath argued that the Jama Masjid was designated as a protected monument in 1951, yet unauthorised madrasa operations continue there.

He noted that concerns over potential law and order issues have so far prevented any intervention. Kamath urged the court to direct the Mandya district administration to take action and vacate the madrasa from the mosque.

In defence, lawyers for the state government and the Waqf Board contested this request, stating that the Waqf Board had been recognised as the owner of the property since 1963 and, thus, conducting madrasa activities there is lawful.

After hearing both sides, the bench adjourned the case for further arguments, scheduling the next hearing for November 20.

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News Network
November 18,2024

Advisors to US President-elect Donald Trump have instructed his allies and associates to refrain from using the inflammatory language they previously employed when discussing issues related to migrants and the deportation of asylum seekers, in a bid to avoid “looking like Nazis.”

US media reports said that Trump’s associates had been asked to stop using the word “camps” to describe potential facilities that would be used to accommodate migrants rounded up in deportation operations across the country.

The reports said the US president-elect’s allies had been ordered to stave off such charged terms as they would bring to mind “Nazis,” and be used against Trump.

“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” one Trump ally told American monthly magazine Rolling Stone.

“Apparently, some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”

The presidential advisers also cautioned surrogates and allies to keep racist terms, which have dogged Trump’s campaign, out of their remarks.

They said with Trump’s heated rhetoric that used to compare undocumented immigrants to “animals” and his slight that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” detractors did not need to reach too far to find parallels to Nazi Germany.

Stephen Miller, who Trump tapped to be his deputy chief of staff of policy, specifically used the word “camps” to describe holding facilities that he hoped the military could put together for immigrants.

Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is chosen by Trump to be in charge of the US borders, was no stranger to such language.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”

Becoming a little more forthright about the new government’s aggressive deportation plans, Homan likened the early days of the Trump administration to the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“I got three words for them – shock and awe,” he said. “You’re going to see us take this country back.”

Trump made immigration a central element of his 2024 presidential campaign but unlike his first run, which was mainly focused on building a border wall, he has shifted his attention to interior enforcement and the removal of undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

People close to the US president and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise.

The businessman-turned-politician deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term.

The figure do not include the millions of people turned away at the border under a Covid-era policy enacted by Trump and used during most of Biden’s term.

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