Shah to be based in India

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 10: Secretary-general Kofi Annan’s special envoy to Iraq Prakash Shah is working only part time since August seven and will be based in India instead of Baghdad, U.N. officials said.

However, they denied that his status has been downgraded from permanent to part time employee following American criticism. His services will now be used on as needed basis and he would be paid for the services rendered.

The U.N. officials also denied reports circulating at the headquarters that he had resigned and said he himself had sought part time status two months ago as the future of arms inspections was uncertain.

Shah, a former Indian Ambassador to the United Nations, has already left Baghdad and it is unclear when he would return. He was appointed in March last year to provide Annan with political access in Baghdad at a time when tensions between Iraq and arms inspectors were running high.

Britain, which generally takes a cue from the United States, is also said to have expressed similar views.

Former chairman of United Nations Special Commission Richard Butler had said the nerve agents and chemical agents were used for calibration but Russia had expressed apprehension that arms inspectors might have used them to plant evidence. (PTI)

Pak rules out talks with India before elections

ISLAMABAD, Aug 10: Pakistan has ruled out possibility of meaningful dialogue with New Delhi before elections in India.

Pakistan’s official news agency APP last night quoted Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmed as saying that he does not think that any meaningful dialogue could be held between the two countries before Indian polls.

Ahmed said there was also no possibility of any contact at the highest level During the UN General Assembly session in New York next month.

He, however, confirmed the remarks of Pakistani High Commissioner in New Delhi Ashraf Jehangir Qazi in an interview to PTI that the UN session just provided an opportunity (for talks) as it happened in the past and may so again.

Qazi in the interview had said that the forthcoming general Assembly session could provide an opportunity for the leaders of the two countries to meet.

However, ahmed said I do not think he (Qazi) had any specific proposal on Indo-Pak talks at the UN General Assembly session and the High Commissioner only enunciated our well known policy of dialogue with a view to resolving the problems.

The High Commissioner had only underlined Pakistan’s sincerity to the Lahore process and to the concept of resolving disputes through dialogue, APP quoted the foreign secretary as saying.

Ahmed termed as unreasonable pronouncements India’s assertion that Pakistan should take steps to immediately halt the cross-border terrorism and respect the sanctity and inviolability of the Line of Control before any dialogue process could be resumed.

Stating that any Indo-Pak dialogue should focuss on the resolution of the Kashmir issue, the Foreign Secretary said we believe if Kashmir remains unresolved, it will continue to cast dark shadows on the prospects of durable peace in South Asia.

He said that the reference of sanctity of LoC in the Washington declaration issued after meeting between US President Bill Clinton and Premier Nawaz Sharif early last month following the Kargil crisis was purely in the context of mutual respect of LoC by both Pakistan and India. (PTI)

India denies ‘secret’ trade-off theory

WASHINGTON, Aug 10: India has denied the "secret" trade- off theory, suggesting that New Delhi granted asylum to the Dalai Lama in 1959 inreturn for an American commitment to train its 400 nuclear scientists who later helped it produce nuclear weapons.

"To me, the whole theory sounds like a fairy tale. I have never heard this before," said deputy chief of Indian mission T.P Sreenivasan at a panel discussion organised by National Security News Service here yesterday.

The veteran Indian diplomat was responding to former U. S. Marine Major William Carson’s claim that the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had told the Americans that if India was to accept the Dalai Lama, the United States would have to help India develop nuclear weapons.

"A security assurance is not enough, Nehru said India required its own nuclear guarantee against China," he added. (China would not testa nuclear weapon for more than five years, in October 1964. However, India was aware of China’s nuclear weapons efforts and overwhelming conventional force.

Maj. Carson said though the U.S. had helped provide the nuclear reactor, the then President Eisenhower was not willing to make a direct transfer of nuclear weapons technology to India. The U.S. envoys offered Pdt. Nehru a compromise. U.S. would accept 400 Indian students into American graduate programmes in the nuclear sciences.

He said the course of negotiations left no doubt that Pdt. Nehru would assign the American-trained scientists to produce nuclear weapons. India tested its first nuclear device in May 1974, less than 16 years after Pdt. Nehru and the American envoys shook hands over the deal, he added.

Mr. Sreenivasan, in response, said, "as far as I know, there is no link between the Dalai Lama’s arrival in India and the arrival of Indian scientists in the United States. Moreover, our nuclear programme has been indigenously developed over a period of time.

"India and the United States have a long history of scientific exchange and many scientists have come to the United States in pursuit of knowledge. As far as I know, there is no link between the Dalai Lama’s arrival in India and the arrival of Indian scientists in the United States," he added.

"What I know is that the decision to welcome the Dalai Lama to India was India’s own and this decision was dictated by the consideration that the Dalai Lama was the spiritual leader of the Tibetans and that he and his followers had nowhere else to go at that time." Mr Sreenivasan remarked.

He said,"it should also be noted that even though the Dalai Lama and his followers have lived in India for several years and they are treated as our honoured guests, they are not permitted to engage in political activities."

Earlier, Maj Carson recalled that in the spring of 1958, he, as the American defence intelligence officer in Hong Kong, learnt from a colleague in the British Embassy in Beijing that the Chinese were planning a campaign of final pacification in Tibet for the spring of 1959.

He said President Eisenhower summoned his most trusted national security aides a four-star general and two top state department officials and told them that the way to thwart the Chinese was to spirit the Dalai Lama out of tibet before the Chinese could get to him.

Maj Carson said Mr Eisenhower believed India could be persuaded to grant political asylum to the Dalai Lama, but knew he would have to offer some very strong incentives. Pt Nehru was a "notorious hard bargainer and the favour eisenhower was asking carried great risk to India," he added.

Pt Nehru made other demands that complicated Maj Carson’s job. The Indians required complete deniability of any prior knowledge. And, India would not allow any supporting activity on its territory.

Using limited aviation support from Tibet, and moving supplies through an import-export house created for the purpose in Sri Lanka, Maj Carson readied the escape route during the Himalayan winter of 1958-59.

On the night of March 17, 1959, the Dalai Lama and his 84-person retnue slipped out of the summer palace. The party moved by night, navigating with the help of a hudson bomber. They hid by day, relying on blowing snow to cover signs of their movement.

The Dalai Lama crossed the Indian border on March 31, 1959. Pt. Nehru’s Government granted him asylum. (UNI)

US denies plan to raid Bin Laden

WASHINGTON, Aug 10: The United States has denied a report from Qatar that U.S. military planes had landed in Pakistan with commandos in apparent preparation for a strike against Afghan-based guerrilla leader Osama Bin Laden.

"This is an inaccurate report and should not be taken seriously," Mr David Leavy, a spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House, told Reuters soon after the report aired by a satellite television station in the Gulf emirate yesterday.

Al-Jazeerah Television, monitored by the BBC in Jordan, said the two planes landed at the same time — one at Islamabad Airport and the other at a nearby airport. It said dozens of U.S. military commandos emerged, taking up combat positions Jo Fbohe planes and barring anyone from approaching the area.

Al-Jazeerah reported that the operation was in apparent preparation for a military strike against Bin Laden, the exiled saudi dissident whom the United States holds responsible for the bombing of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania a year ago that killed at least 226 people, including 12 Americans.

The pentagon, which does not discuss elite commando movements, declined comment on the report. But Mr Leavy quickly denied it and another senior U.S. official, who asked not to be identified, also said it was not true.

President Bill Clinton said on the eve of the anniversary of the bombings last friday that the United States would not rest until justice was done.

The United States retaliated for the Embassy bombings last August. 20 with missile strikes at what U.S. officials said were Bin Laden’s camps for training guerrillas in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden has repeatedly denied responsibility for the embassy attacks.

The Quatari Broadcast, monitored by the BBC, said "informed Pakistani sources" reported that two U.S. aircraft had landed at Islamabad and Quetta airports in Pakistan for possible use against Afghan targets.

"The sources said Pakistani officers and the personnel of the two air bases were banned from coming close to the two aircraft, which, it is believed, would probably take part in striking Afghan targets," the report said.

"The sources confirmed the arrival of scores of U.S. commandos to Islamabad. It is believed that they will take part in such an operation," the report added.

There was no confirmation of the report in Islamabad, where the vernacular Urdu and English-language media has been abuzz with speculation of an imminent commando raid or missile attack in the runup to the August 20 anniversary of the U.S.’s retaliatory strikes.

In a later broadcast, the television’s correspondent in Islamabad said his information came both from well-informed Pakistani sources and the Taleban, the Islamic movement controlling 90 per cent of Afghanistan.

He added that the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad had secretly been evacuating dependents of diplomatic personnel. He said that more than 75 Americans had been evacuated in the past five days, and that the source for this information was Pakistani authorities.

The U.S. Embassy has protested to the leader of an extreme Islamic party over his threats to attack Americans if Washington launched another strike against Bin Laden.

"Any attack on Osama will be considered an attack on Islam and Pakistan and that would be resisted with full force," Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the small Jamiat Ulema-I-Islam party told thousands of Islamists in Peshawar 10 days ago.

"In the event of an American attack on Afghanistan, there will be war, not against America but against Americans," Rehman told another public rally one week ago.

"The American Ambassador should convey the message from the Pakistani people and Mujahideen (holy warriors) to his Government that neither the Ambassador nor any American diplomat in Pakistan will be safe," he said. (REUTERS)

Yeltsin may consider taking drastic steps

MOSCOW, Aug 10: President Boris Yeltsin may consider taking drastic steps like cancelling the duma and presidential elections if former Premier Yevgeni Primakov takes over the reins of the proposed anti-Yeltsin ‘united election alliance’, it has been reported.

However, Presidential administration spokesperson Dmitri Yekushkin has said that a state of emergency would not be declared. No extreme measures would be taken, he remarked while commenting on the appointment of Mr Vladimir Putin as Premier.

Extreme measures cannot be implemented, as they would undo all the good work carried out during the past few years to strengthen democracy and introduce reforms, he said.

The influential Russian daily ‘Nezavisimaya Gazeta’ has said that if Mr Primakov refuses to join the bloc, consisting of two major parties the ‘Otechestvo’ (Motherland) and ‘Vsya Rus’ (all Russia), the alliance will lose heavily and will no longer pose a threat to the Kremlin.

Referring to yesterday’s sacking of Mr Sergei Stepashin, the daily said it was the first time that an act of President Yeltsin did not contain an element of surprise. Rumours have been doing the rounds for the past few days in moscow that Mr Stepashin would be dismissed.

Meanwhile, a late night Novosti dispatch said the Duma will start discussing the nomination of Mr Putin on August 16. Many members have already returned to Moscow after their summer sabbatical.

Speaker Gennadi Seleznov, third in the hierarchy after the President and the Premier, has refused to comment on Mr Stepashin’s ouster.

Media reports say that Mr Stepashin, while leaving his official headquarters, praised Mr Putin’s abilities, and dryly added, "I wish him luck, for he possesses everything else."

Political analysts here feel that the very talks of Mr Stepashin becoming Mr Yeltsin’s successor led to his downfall. Earlier, Mr Sergei Kiriyenko, Mr Viktor Chenomyrdin and Mr Yevgeni Primakov had been projected as future heads of state, but were unceremoniusly ousted.

This, the analysts say, is because an insecure presidential administration is not keen on seeing anybody who does not toe the Kremlin’s line, ascend the presidential chair.

Stringent criticism of Mr Stepashin’s removal has come in from Tatarstan President Mintimer Sahimiyev, a key figure in the newly-formed all Russia party. A close confidant of Mr Yeltsin some time back, he termed the dismissal ‘ill-timed’.

"If society chooses democracy, the President must take public opinion into consideration, and the present decision of the head of the state would have negative influence on society and the economy," he told Novosti in Kazan, the Tatarstani capital.

The journal ‘Vlast’, talking about the behind-the-screen scenes in the Kremlin, had hinted sometime ago that that Mr Stepashin was not part of the ‘President’s household’. Mr Yeltsin’s daughter Tatyana Dyachenko wants to bring the no 2 man in the Stepashin Cabinet Alexander Aksenenko to the centrestage, it had said.

Mr Aksenenko is believed to belong to the camp of millionaire Roman Abramovich, an arch rival of Tycoon Boris Berezovsky.

Mr Stepashin’s dismissal is also proof of Mr Berezovsky’s waning influence, experts feel.

Political analysts here feel that the conflicts in the Kremlin are still far from over. Mr Putin’s installation as premier is only a prelude to fresh developments before the Duma elections in December, they say.

The formula of ‘Prime Minister today, President tomorrow’, can well be changed to ‘Prime Minister today, dismissed tomorrow’, they add.

Also, analysts feel Mr Putin, a person who has been in charge of both, the police and the intelligence service, will find his nomination being approved easily by the Duma.

However, Mr Putin must also contend with the fact that he is now entrusted with the task of creating a Duma that is not hostile to the President’s family. (UNI)

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