Agreement between U.S. and Pakistan on NATO supply routes remains elusive; Secretary Panetta says U.S. “not likely” to pay higher fees to Pakistan for NATO supply trucks; President Zardari meets with Secretary Clinton at NATO summit; NATO leaders say Pakistan has “important role” in Afghanistan; Pakistan allows four trucks carrying diplomatic supplies to cross into Afghanistan; Pakistan shuts down Twitter temporarily; String of killings in Karachi; Firefight between rival militant groups in Khyber Agency; “Nearly 460 schools” damaged in FATA; Turkmenistan to sign agreement on TAPI pipeline on Wednesday; PML-N likely to boycott dinner in honor of Turkish prime minister; Sixteen missing persons in custody of security agencies.
NATO
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Despite signs that Pakistan and the U.S. were close to reaching an agreement on NATO supply routes, the New York Times reported that a deal between the two countries remained elusive at the NATO summit in Chicago this past weekend. President Obama refused to meet with President Asif Ali Zardari without an agreement on the supply lines, and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen canceled a meeting with Zardari, citing “scheduling conflicts.” According to U.S. officials, the main obstacle to finalizing the deal was the increase from $250 to more than $5,000, in the amount NATO would pay for each truck carrying supplies from Pakistan to Afghanistan. In an interview before attending the summit, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said that "considering the financial challenges” that the U.S. is facing, it is “not likely” that the U.S. will agree to the higher payments.[1]
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President Zardari met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the sidelines of the NATO summit on Sunday. According to the Express Tribune, President Zardari stated that Pakistan “wanted to find a permanent solution regarding drone strikes,” and it wanted the U.S. to help Pakistan achieve closure on the Salala episode “by following the path laid down by the country’s parliament.” Secretary Clinton’s press release said that the U.S. “intends to move forward in its relationship” with Pakistan, but it did not specify what those terms would be. President Zardari also met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday, and the two leaders agreed “to extend the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement beyond Afghanistan to countries in Central Asia.”[2]
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On the eve of the summit, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S. Sherry Rehman said that Pakistan wanted to engage in a “positive conversation” about reopening NATO supply routes, but it was too soon to say when the supply lines would resume. Rehman also stated that Pakistan still wanted a formal apology from the U.S. over the Salala airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.[3]
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NATO leaders released a declaration shortly after meeting at the Chicago summit, stating that Pakistan has an “important [role] in ensuring enduring peace, stability and security in Afghanistan and in facilitating the completion of the transition process.”[4]
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For the first time in six months, Pakistan allowed four trucks carrying supplies for the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan to cross the Torkham border post into Afghanistan on Friday. According to a senior official at the embassy, the “ban on the transportation of NATO supplies is still intact” and the trucks were carrying “diplomatic…non-NATO supplies.”[5]
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On Saturday, the Difa-e-Pakistan Council announced that it will march from Karachi to Islamabad on May 27 to protest against the Pakistani government’s decision to reopen NATO supply routes.[6]
Twitter Ban
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Pakistan’s telecommunication regulators shut down Twitter for approximately eight hours on Sunday, because the site would not remove content that the Pakistani government found “objectionable” to Muslims. The ban was lifted when Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ordered Pakistan’s Ministry of Information Technology to restore access to the site on Sunday night. The “objectionable” tweets allegedly urged participation in “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” on May 20, a campaign that has been denounced by Muslims worldwide for encouraging “blasphemous” depictions of Islam’s prophet.[7]
Militancy
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On Sunday, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government released a presentation, “Continuing Militancy, Challenge & Response,” outlining its new, comprehensive strategy to combat militancy in the province. At a cabinet meeting, federal and provincial officials agreed that force alone “is not the answer” and that, once foreign troops left Afghanistan, the Taliban in Afghanistan would push militants in Pakistan to take on the Pakistani state. While details of the strategy were not released, officials sought to move beyond the previous 3-D strategy (Development, Deterrence, and Dialogue) and described the new strategy as pushing state institutions and government departments to work in a “concerted and coordinated manner” in which Pakistan would learn from other nations, attempt to “squeeze finances to militant organizations,” and “mobilize all government departments.”[8]
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Schools in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) have been the target of militant bombings, reports the Washington Post. In recent years, “nearly 460 schools have been damaged or destroyed” in the FATA, with many more schools hit in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. Hundreds of schools, most of them for girls, have not been rebuilt, with Pakistani authorities relying on non-governmental organizations to address the issue. Although Pakistani military operations are taking place in all seven of the tribal districts, militant bombings continue, with the Washington Post attributing them to Islamic extremists who want to “eradicate any form of secular education provided by the state and not adhering to fundamentalist beliefs.”[9]
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A string of killings in Karachi on Saturday and Sunday added 11 deaths to the 15 reported dead on Friday. On Saturday, four were reported dead in the areas of Essa Nagri, Yousuf Goth, and Baldia, two of which Dawn attributed to shootings from unknown assailants. Four additional people sustained bullet injuries. A Sindh police spokesperson said one of the deaths was a targeted killing while four were the result of personal enmity. Geo News reports that police, after obtaining information about the presence of “target killers” in the area on Saturday, conducted raids that led to the arrest of four and recovery of arms and drugs. On Monday, six more people were killed in Karachi—one after being tortured, the others resulting from incidents of firing.[10]
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A firefight between rival militant groups in Khyber Agency early Monday resulted in five people dead and five more injured. The two groups, Lashkar-e-Islam and Ansarul Islam, have frequently clashed in the Sanda Pal area of Tirah Valley, which is under the influence of militants, including the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.[11]
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Following a Pakistani security operation in the Swabi district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Sunday, one militant was killed, two injured, and another arrested. The operation, targeting a seminary run by Maulana Mujtaba, resulted in the arrest of Mujtaba, two teachers, and eleven students belonging to the seminary.[12]
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Unidentified militants blew up a government school in the Swabi district Saturday night. Three improvised explosive devices had been planted at the school, two of which were detonated while the third was safely defused.[13]
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Imtiaz Rasool, chief warden of Quetta’s district jail, was shot and killed by unidentified men on a motorbike near the jail on Saturday.[14]
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Punjabi Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif admitted that the southern flank of the province was a breeding ground for militants, reversing the government’s previous denial of militancy in the area. He credited extreme poverty and ignorance for driving the local militancy, calling for a solution that improves socio-economic conditions in the area.[15]
Protest
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On Sunday, journalists in Quetta protested against the murder of Razzaq Gul, a journalist for Express News, whose bullet-riddled body was found near his home in Turbat, Balochistan on Saturday. According to a statement released by the Balochistan Union of Journalists, 21 journalists have now lost their lives “in the line of duty” in Balochistan. The protesters called on the government to investigate Gul’s murder and to increase its efforts to protect journalists in Balochistan.[16]
Energy
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Reuters reported on Monday that Turkmenistan is expected to sign an agreement this week to supply natural gas to Pakistan and India through the U.S.-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline that will cross Afghanistan. According to an official in Turkmenistan’s government, the “plan is to sign the TAPI natural gas sales and purchase agreement with Islamabad and Delhi on May 23” at an international gas conference in the Caspian Sea resort of Avaza.[17]
International Relations
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The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) announced on Monday that it would boycott a dinner hosted by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in honor of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, because it did not recognize Gilani, who has been convicted of contempt of court, as prime minister. The Express Tribune reported that the PML-N seemed conflicted over its decision to boycott the dinner, since PML-N Chief Nawaz Sharif and his family have had good relations with the Turkish prime minister. Adding to the confusion over the PML-N’s expected course of action, senior PML-N leaders claimed they would attend the session because Erdogan is an “honoured guest.” Erdogan is expected to address a joint session of Pakistan’s parliament before the dinner on Monday.[18]
Internally Displaced Persons
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A United Nations spokesperson stated on Friday that since the resumption of Pakistani security operations in January, 232,390 people have been displaced. He noted that UN humanitarian agencies would need $169 million to help internally displaced Pakistanis living in Mohmand, Bajaur, South Waziristan, and Orakzai.[19]
Missing Persons
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Pakistani Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry issued summons for several governmental figures, including the defense and interior secretaries, the prime minister, and Balochistan’s principal secretaries, to discuss a petition concerning the law and order situation and human rights conditions in Balochistan. In addition to the targeting killings of journalists, Chaudhry commented on the non-recovery of missing persons, including 16 missing persons currently in the custody of security agencies.[20]