ISLAMABAD, Pakistan News: Interior Minister Rehman Malik has welcomed the Indian Home Minister’s statement with regard to dialogues with Pakistan would also include Kashmir issue.

According to the details, Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram assured that the confidence-building measures on Kashmir will be taken up in the Indo-Pakistan foreign secretaries meeting, to be held on February 25.

Pakistan News: The spokesman of foreign office Abdul Basit said that Pakistan and India are both Nuclear powers, war between the two countries cannot be imagined. He said that Pakistan wants resolve all outstanding issues including the water and Kashmir issue through dialogue. In an interview Basit said that India has taken no step to resolve the Kashmir issue. Afghan issue would also be raised during the meeting with India.
The spokesman said that the frame work proposed by Pakistan is more suitable for composite dialogue. He said that no opportunity should be given to people who want to damage relations between the two countries. The Indian frame work for the composite dialogue is being criticized in India. He also said that Pakistan wants to continue composite dialogue with the old agenda. India has not kept any precondition for dialogue.

Resumption of a composite dialogue is positive, says Najam Sethi
Famous analyst Najam Sethi speaking to Dunya News said that the initiation of dialogue between India and Pakistan is positive however there are many difficulties that remains. Pakistan is willing however India unwilling to discuss Kashmir. India wants to talk on Kashmir in accordance with Pervaiz Musharf policy of the past. Our new foreign minister is demanding to resolve Kashmir issue according to UN resolution that would be unacceptable to India.
Najam Sethi said that water issue is not easy to solve. India has been talking for the last 2 years on the issue. There were four issues of water of which three have been resolved with the intervention of World Bank.
Najam also said that terrorism would be discussed. India is expected to make demands for handing over members of Lashker-e-Taybia while Pakistan would present proofs of Indian intervention in Balochistan.

MIRPUR (AJK), Pakistan News: All around the world including Pakistan, Kashmir Solidarity Day is being observed today with zeal and fervor. President Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said that Pakistan will continue its efforts for impartial soultion of Kashmir issue.
All is set by Pakistani nation and the people of Azad Jammu & Kashmir across the world will join hands today to voice for the right of self determination for the Jammu & Kashmir people and to support their just and principled struggle. Azad Jammu Kashmir Government as well as several Social, Political and Human Rights organizations have chalked out elaborate programmes to re-pledge their solidarity with the people of occupied Jammu & Kashmir in a dignified manner on this occasion. It would be official holiday throughout Azad Jammu Kashmir besides an explicit call to the United Nations and peace-loving nations to arrange an early impartial plebiscite in Kashmir for an amicable settlement of the dispute. The day will dawn with special prayers in the mosques at Namaz-a-Fajr coupled with the offering of Fateha for the martyrs of Kashmir and for the early success of Kashmir liberation movement. A five-minute silence will be observed all across Pakistan and in Azad Jammu and Kashmir to pay homage to Kashmir martyrs at 10.00 a.m. A human chain will be built throught the routes which connect Pakistan with Azad Kashmir. The human chains by the Pakistani brethren with the people of AJK will also be made at all other six bridges of AJK linking Pakistan including Mangla, Dhangali, Holar, Bararkot, Dhalkot, Azad Pattan and Mangla bridge over various Kashmir’s born rivers falling in Pakistan will be made at 10.00 a.m today. The AJK President and Prime Minister will visit the occupied Jammu Kashmir refugee camps in Muzaffarabad to share their miseries and grief. Food packets and gifts will also be distributed among the refugees. The Day will be observed with renewed pledges and commitments to continue diplomatic, moral and political support to Jammu Kashmir people in their just and principled struggle for the achievement of the right to self determination and the cause of Kashmir.

Indian Army chief has acknowledged for first time about the superiority of the Pakistani armed forces over the Indian armed forces, especially fighting capability of Pakistani forces is far more superior then the Indian forces.
General Deepak Kapoor was speaking to the media on the 62nd Army day where he said that Pakistani armed forces have 80% capability while the Indian forces have 20% capability to fight in the dark. He said India wants to have peaceful relations with its neighbors including Pakistan and China. Situation is under control of the army in the Kashmir region.

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan News: President Zardari has called upon the global community to seriously help resolve Kashmir dispute and added that Pakistan would support Kashmiris on all fronts.
Addressing a joint meeting of Azad Kashmir legislative assembly and AJK Kashmir Council, the President warned that the lingering Kashmir issue would further harm the regional stability. The President added that India has been suppressing Kashmiris by force, and termed it Pakistan’s duty to help them get their rights.
Zardari called for resumption of dialogue with India, however, added that Kashmir would top any such talk. He said that all available resources would be utilized for the development of Kashmir. The President also noted to exempt the Mangla Dam affectees from uplift funds, with an announcement of establishment of medical college and dry port.

SRINAGAR: High-level advisers appointed by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are recommending autonomy for Kashmir, where militants have fought for 20 years against rule from New Delhi.

The advisory group, headed by former supreme court judge Saghir Ahmad, recommended that the prime minister look at various formulations “to restore the autonomy to the extent possible”.

The group’s report was delivered to the Kashmir chief minister late Wednesday and made public Thursday.

The Kashmir legislative assembly in 2000 passed a resolution favouring full restoration of the state’s autonomy. But India’s then Hindu-nationalist government rejected the resolution passed unanimously by the assembly.

Autonomy is the main demand of the ruling National Conference, the state’s biggest pro-India political party, which had moved the resolution in 2000.

“We will react only after going through the report. It is a long report,” said Ali Mohammed Sagar, held Kashmir’s law and parliamentary minister.

Singh had appointed the working group in May 2006 to try to find a permanent solution to the unrest in the scenic Himalayan region, which is split between India and Pakistan.

NEW DELHI: Indian defence minister AK Antony on Friday stated that the armed forces require special powers to counter terrorism and insurgency in Kashmir and the northeast.

“As long as their (armed forces) presence is necessary, they need special provisions. They cannot function without special powers,” Antony told reporters in Delhi.

Antony also announced that the government has withdrawn around 30,000 troops from Kashmir.

He said two Army divisions comprising around 30,000 troops have been moved out of Kashmir in the wake of improvement in the security situation there.

WASHINGTON : President Barack Obama’s administration said on Wednesday that a July 2011 target date to begin withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan was not set in stone, while stepping up warnings over corruption.

The day after Obama unveiled his new plan for turning around the war in Afghanistan with a surge of 30,000 more US soldiers, top officials stressed that any timetable for an eventual pullout was still flexible.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and the top uniformed US military officer, Admiral Michael Mullen, sought to sell the new approach under fire from Obama’s hawkish Republican foes.

During hours of questioning by two key committees, they made clear that his target date of starting a US troop withdrawal in 19 months’ time — a step some anti-escalation lawmakers, especially Democrats, had cheered — could slip.

“I do not believe we have locked ourselves into leaving,” said Clinton, who added the goal was “to signal very clearly to all audiences that the United States is not interested in occupying Afghanistan.”

Gates said the extra troops Obama had ordered to Afghanistan would be in place in July 2010, that a December 2010 review of the war effort would shape the pace of the withdrawal, and that the target date could change.

“I think the president, as commander in chief, always has the option to adjust his decisions,” he told Republican Senator John McCain, Obama’s defeated White House rival in 2008.

“Then it makes no sense for him to have announced the date,” said McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Meanwhile, the White House warned Afghan President Hamid Karzai to fight corruption or see Washington bypass his cabinet and seek out lower level officials to provide essential services to Afghans.

The warning — coming a day after Obama said the US government would no longer give Afghanistan a “blank check” for US aid — turned up the pressure on Karzai to end the corruption seen as fueling the Taliban insurgency.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters that Obama talked “about the notion that it is time for a new chapter in Afghan governance” in conversations with Karzai, including a secure videoconference late Monday.

When he unveiled his new Afghan strategy in a speech on Tuesday, Obama made it clear he expected major changes from the Karzai government’s status quo, and outlined several steps he wanted them to take.

“The days of providing a blank check are over,” Obama said in the speech, noting that Karzai sent the “right message about moving in a new direction” when he was inaugurated last month as president for another term.

Gibbs on Wednesday took the warning a step further.

“If President Karzai is unable or unwilling to make changes in corruption or governance… we will identify people at a sub-cabinet level, at a district level that can implement the types of services and basic governance, without corruption, that Afghans need.”

In her testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Clinton said the administration has “real concerns about the influence of corrupt officials in the Afghan government, and we will continue to pursue them.”

She also recalled Karzai’s remarks at his inauguration, which she attended in Kabul, following his victory in the fraud-marred August elections.

“He (Karzai) pledged to combat corruption, improve governance, and deliver for the people of his country. His words were long in coming, but welcome. They must now be matched with action,” the chief US diplomat told senators.

Gates also strove to reassure war-weary Americans that the US presence was “not open-ended” and that “it is neither necessary, nor feasible, to create a modern, centralized, Western-style Afghan nation-state, the likes of which has never been seen in that country.”

He promised “a narrower focus” on routing al Qaeda, with “observable progress on clear objectives” but bluntly told lawmakers: “Quite frankly, I detest the phrase ‘exit strategy.’”

“What is essential is — for our national security — is that we have two long-term partners in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he said.

On Thursday, Clinton, Mullen and Gates go before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, while Mullen and Gates were also due to appear before the House Armed Services Committee.

LONDON, Pakistan News: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has said peace and stability in the region cannot materialize unless the lingering dispute of Kashmir is resolved peacefully through negotiations.

“Pakistan desires peaceful relations with India and that the stalled Composite Dialogue process should be resumed,” Gilani told a large gathering of Pakistani community here Wednesday at a local hotel soon after his arrival in the British capital.

Mentioning the successful military operations carried out in Swat and Malakand against terrorists, the PM said the operation in South Waziristan was also proceeding to success.

The Prime Minister said the entire nation stood behind the government in its move to eradicate militants.

Gilani said Baitullah Mahsood, who according to him was responsible for the assassination of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, has also been killed during the successful military operation.

He paid tribute to the residents of Malakand who left their homes for the country’s sake and hoped that FATA’s affected persons would also return to their homes soon.

The Prime Minister appreciated the expatriate Pakistani community for their generous donations for PM’s Fund for the IDPs of Swat and Malakand.

He, however, asked them for a collective policy rather than individual one by adopting a village in Swat, Malakand and FATA and then fulfilling their basic necessities.
The Prime Minister said at the end of the counter-terrorism operation in FATA, the government would announce a reform package on the pattern of the one for Gilgit Baltistan.

Gilani said today Pakistan was confronting with several issues including national security, economy and social welfare and stressed the need to improve them for a smooth journey to development and prosperity.

He said the government was paying due focus on resolving these issues and would utilize all resources in this regard.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Sunday that India was not ready for any change on Kashmir border, adding that both the countries needed to ensure peace while maintaining the present border.

In an interview with a US TV channel, Indian Premiere accused Pakistan of not safeguarding United States’ interests in Afghanistan, adding that it was not doing satisfying work in investigations of Mumbai terror attacks either. Earlier, talking to media upon his arrival in the US, Manmohan had said that operation against terrorists in Waziristan should be decisive. He had claimed that Pakistan wanted US forces to exit Afghanistan as it wanted its own control over there.